#I KNOW MY FANNISH WEAKNESSES OKAY????

[nostalgia-tblr]

filtering a tumblr tag in case that missy-looking mcu woman turns out to be either evil or scary or hubristic or all three and drags me into whatever her show is about with her hot witchy hands

[anghraine]

#I am an equal opportunity hater#or not quite because I thought Fellowship was wonderful#but after that PJ seemed to think he could do no wrong#and TTT and RotK are full of various silly and tone deaf things that I hated#at least they didn't write my favourite elf out of some of his most important history however (via @galadhir)

In the interests of full disclosure, I have no problem with people hating ROP if they aren't 1) racist or misogynistic about it (including by minimizing these elements of Tolkien fandom at large), 2) raging hypocrites wrt ROP vs the Jackson films, and 3) don't make their hatred our problem through inappropriate tagging, irrelevant rants in ROP fans' comments, etc.

Meanwhile, my personal opinion on FOTR the film is that ... okay, it's still very racist, and fairly meh with regard to gender as well. I do think it's the best structured and paced of the Jackson films, and the trilogy's best adaptation of Tolkien's writing as well (especially considering that the FOTR section of LOTR the book is highly episodic and unevenly paced, with a bunch of very minor characters who rarely or never appear again).

However, speaking of the film as an adaptation often held up as faithful, esp by contrast to ROP—I will say that I think fandom perceptions of the "faithfulness" of adaptations such as these are strongly impacted by our own personal fannish priorities. This seems to be ... rarely acknowledged in fidelity discourse.

[Long ramble that you're under no obligation to read, but just illustrating the impact of having different faves and priorities than much of the fandom when it comes to perceptions of fidelity and FOTR vs ROP.]

I don't know who the favorite Elf in question is, but I am personally not super into Elves apart from really loving a few specific faves like Galadriel and Aredhel, and also deeply hating a few of them I won't mention here. Mostly, I just care much more about Second and Third Age Númenóreans (whose cultural existence is barely acknowledged by any of the films) and about peredhil (and am far more annoyed with Elrond's whole "Men are weak!!" thing in FOTR than any Elves in anything. kind as summer whomst). I don't think peredhil and Dúnedain are less significant to the Second or Third Ages than Elves, honestly, but caring more about them does affect what "faithful to Tolkien's vision" looks like to me.

(Hobbits matter more to LOTR in particular than any of these people, I just care less about them. I don't think film!FOTR does great wrt Frodo's or Merry's characterizations, though, if I'm being frank.)

So it's like ... it's not always difficult to get people to acknowledge that Númenor, its legacy, Gondor, and the Dúnadan and peredhel characters are handled quite differently in the films than in the books, including in FOTR. Most people just don't think it matters. But to me, someone who is a Tolkien fan mainly because of Númenor and Gondor, whose favorite Tolkien characters are book Faramir and book Denethor, and who really likes Tolkien's Isildur, the idea of any of the Jackson films being considered faithful when it comes to my own faves is kind of laughable.

For me, the films made it quite difficult to find decent conversations about faves like Isildur until ROP recuperated him. The vast bulk of Isildur content for 20 years was movie-based jokes, memes, takes, etc that had very little bearing on the character Tolkien wrote.

Isildur's a very minor character in LOTR (less minor in UT!), but this has a major impact on more central characters as well. FOTR the movie uses their altered Isildur lore to directly invert Aragorn's motives including his feelings about Isildur and his legacy and Aragorn's own heritage as a mortal man. Book Aragorn is deeply proud of Isildur, and freely acknowledges that he himself is nowhere near as cool or impressive as Isildur was. All three films also excise almost everything to do with Númenor's legacy during LOTR, which has greater consequences in TTT and ROTK, but does affect characters like Aragorn and Boromir in FOTR.

Personally, I like book Aragorn's active ambition, and regard it as pretty essential to who he is as a person. It's a quality that modern heroes are often not allowed to have, much less embrace, but I find it interesting and compelling. I like his personal and familial pride as himself and heir of Isildur that sometimes slips into a bit of obnoxious arrogance that humanizes him. I like his love of Gondor in the book, even though he's not from there and only lived there for a few years. I like his strangeness as a Númenórean throwback, not only his virtue and heroism. These are all really different in the films, even FOTR (movie Aragorn's insecurity and extreme lack of ambition are fundamental to his film arc, in fact).

Boromir's film arc is interesting but shaky IMO, in terms of adaptation. Sometimes effort is made to give him additional sympathetic moments to grant his fall more weight, and this generally works pretty well. On the flip side, sometimes the film also works against this and tries to make him way more blatantly suspicious and morally dubious, which I find rather tedious.

The ultimate resolution for his character in the movie is for him to accept Aragorn as a beloved rightful king. Meanwhile, the final note for book Boromir is his desperate love for his people. I'd argue that for Tolkien, Boromir's arc is not that much about Aragorn at all; it's much more about military heroism as a cultural concept, the strain of existential war, and even nationalism. So it makes sense that his last words in the book reflect different priorities than the films do, but it is different.

I can see why the filmmakers would want to consolidate Aragorn's and Boromir's arcs the way FOTR does, especially in a sort of big budget action-adventure Hollywood type film with a large cast. But I just cannot see the handling of the Dúnedain in any of the Jackson films as all that seriously engaged with what Tolkien was doing with them as an idea.

I feel like the Jackson films mostly do not care about the Dúnedain in general and especially don't care about Gondorian Dúnedain as a concept. They might not seem like a big deal to others, but I think they were absolutely a big deal to Tolkien. This doesn't have to matter to everyone, but it does matter to me because they're my faves and essential to my understanding of Tolkien.

So I don't expect everyone to care about something like book Aragorn being ambitious and having a musical number about how very badly he wants to be king of Gondor. But he's one of the main characters of FOTR and his motives are so drastically changed that, to me, the idea of propping up the films' handling of Aragorn and his people and Gondor as super faithful vs ROP's expansive treatment of Númenor with callouts to even little canon details like the oiolairë bough feels very strange.

thatinsufferableb-st-rd said:

@anghraine so i have read the books multiple times and am an avid fan of the movies. I enjoy both for what they are. I think the main difference is that Peter Jackson was very open about what they chose to cut and why from anything I've ever seen. They even have Sam give a nod to the book readers by saying "by rights we shouldn't even be here". No I'm not happy about what they did with Faramir and Glorfindel got jipped, and I would have lover to have seen Elronds sons but at the end of the day there were acknowledgments of what and why. Rings of Power to me has always come off as hiding from any criticism by using the shield of "well if you don't like it it's because you don't like POCs in it". To which I genuinely could not give a fuck less, like there are so many branches of elves that went different ways so that could make sense within what Tolkein established. But don't hide behind that when your writing is just "Sauron is evil. We know. And we know she knows. But we have to make it seem like she's the only one who Has A Clue so we must all try to shoo her off to make a plotline"

@lesbiansforboromir has already correctly and politely pointed out that you are doing the very thing we were criticizing in that post—intruding on ROP fan discussion to unfavorably contrast the show to the Peter Jackson films, while also applying a degree of scrutiny to ROP that the Jackson films are rarely subject to in a remotely comparable way and could not bear. Frankly, @lesbiansforboromir is nicer and more restrained than I am about this, but you chose to tag me as well, so I'll also respond.

We (lesbiansforboromir and I) were talking about being excited about costuming in S2 of ROP and disliking the fandom meltdowns over ROP's costuming looking (somewhat) different from the films' aesthetic. Since it had already come up in their discussion, I added that I'm not convinced by the anti-ROP contingent framing their seething hatred of the costuming and design as just caring so much about fidelity to Tolkien's vision. I pointed out that Tolkien fandom broadly cares far more about their preferred, film-influenced aesthetics than Tolkien's actual descriptions and gave some specific examples of this.

There's been a lot of talk, for instance, about how the universally long, flowing hair for Elves preferred by the fandom and used in the films is actually totally canon according to Tolkien even if it's rarely mentioned in LOTR proper. This is inaccurate. Galadriel's brother Aegnor is typically depicted in the fandom/film-preferred style rather than per Tolkien's description of his hair as "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames" (indeed, in general neither Aegnor nor anyone else is ever depicted this way, and this description rarely shows up in the lists of "no it's about ethics in adaptation" Tolkien hair quotes).

Tolkien repeatedly describes Elvish, peredhel, and Dúnadan women as wearing their hair bound up in braided coiffures with jeweled hair pieces/nets rather than loose and flowing à la the films and the fandom. Nobody cares, any more than they care about Tolkien's description of Arwen's clothing as soft, grey, and noticeably devoid of ornamentation apart from a belt and netted cap (i.e. the opposite of her highly elaborate film costuming and typically loose, unbound, uncovered hair in the films and most illustrations).

Meanwhile, my fave Faramir's hair is nowhere near long enough in the films or most art to mingle with Éowyn's as Tolkien describes. It's usually also depicted as blond, reddish, or brown rather than black as in the book; in Tolkien's LOTR, all described Gondorians have dark or black hair, with the only difference in coloring being that some Gondorians are dark-skinned and some are pale. Again, almost nobody in the fandom cares about this when they're going on about costume design and casting to reflect Tolkien's vision, and male Gondorians are overwhelmingly depicted with short or shoulder-length hair in the films and in Tolkien illustrations.

Popular depictions of Gondor, including the Gondor of the films, very rarely reflect Tolkien's description of Gondor's aesthetic as similar to ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire. Film Gondor has, at most, extremely vague allusions to Byzantine architecture amidst the general and deliberate westernization of Gondor's design—as just one example among many, Tolkien's explicitly Egyptian-based design for the royal crown of Gondor is converted to a generically western European-style crown in the films and overwhelmingly in the fandom.

I then pointed out that it's been very noticeable that ROP haters tend to have a powerful double standard wrt fidelity when it comes to the Jackson films. For over 20 years, most film fans have been constitutionally incapable of tolerating even slight criticism of the films without jumping in to defend their greatness and condescendingly explain the most basic elements of adaptation. (Yes, we know film is not the same as text, we know changes are part of adaptation, we all know that, we all know that a word-for-word adaptation would suck and never be made, this is not new information and does not make the PJ films' every choice a good one.) Yet most film LOTR fans who vocally despise ROP display none of the charity towards ROP that they demand for the films (demand even from someone like Christopher Tolkien, a dead man the entire fandom is deeply indebted to, whose dislike of the films still leads to regular attacks on his character from Jackson film stans).

This hypercritical yet hyperdefensive tendency in the fandom is neatly illustrated by the fact that you responded to a conversation about the double standards in evaluations of ROP's costuming vs the films' to go on about how ROP is objectively bad for reasons entirely unrelated to costuming, how you're totally not racist (something nobody was talking about), and to quote you directly, "Like the show was just Bad." Truly, an incisive critique. Meanwhile, your concessions with regard to the Jackson films are mainly about extremely minor and defensible omissions like removing Glorfindel and the sons of Elrond rather than the serious and fundamental problems that lesbiansforboromir and I have with them, or even the ways they do pretty much the exact same things you're lambasting ROP for.

I mean, if we're going to talk about action hero Elves in ROP vs the Jackson films, what about the action hero-ification of Legolas in the films? He was described by Tolkien himself as the Fellowship member who accomplished the least, so super badass battle-skateboarding Legolas hardly represents fidelity to Tolkien's vision. Why should that get a pass while film-stanning ROP haters seethe about ROP!Galadriel being too special, even though Tolkien described her as one of the most special Elves to ever live and specifically as remarkably athletic and insightful?

Meanwhile, film Gimli is reduced to comic relief, the only dwarves taken seriously are conventionally hot ones in The Hobbit films, and Frodo's expressions of strength and fortitude are consistently removed to glorify other characters. Film Gondorians were deliberately designed to seem like useless tin soldiers (which they are in the films, as well as whiter and blonder than Tolkien wrote them) rather than the physically imposing and highly effective fighting force of the book. ROP imagining Elvish rituals upon approaching Valinor that aren't based in Tolkien canon but don't directly conflict with it is absolutely trivial compared to the films' handling of Denethor and Faramir.

The point is not that you, personally, are not allowed to like the films or dislike ROP despite all this. Many people do love the films, including most of my followers. They do have their strengths, though they are extremely racist and few film fans will acknowledge this without soft-pedaling it in some way (esp, since you brought it up, given the context of the truly unhinged degree of racism that has accompanied much of the broader discourse around ROP).

The point is that film fans who hate ROP are constantly showing up in our conversations to be "well actually ROP is just objectively bad, unlike the films, because the show has failings that are also in the films but it's totally different there because of the contents of Peter Jackson's soul" or whatever. The point is the absolutely glaring and obnoxiously hypocritical double standard of defensiveness about the films and obsessive nitpicking of ROP that leads to ROP haters continually going on rants to ROP fans that are unwelcome, uninvited, and usually (as in this case) irrelevant to what was even being discussed.

[olderthannetfic]

To try to add to the discussion regarding anon, wanting insta-friends, and boundaries ... I think a lot of people in fandom personally overestimate how many people are approaching fandom as their main social hangout. Lots of people in fandom don't care about having lifelong best friends and generally treat fandom friends as acquaintances who share a hobby. While a lot of us are lonely nerds, many people in fandom either already have a close-knit friend group and aren't seeking it out in fandom or don't even want one in the first place.

If you go into a social interaction wanting or expecting the other person to form that relationship with you but they're entirely uninterested ... then I think they can very easily come across as rude, standoffish, cold, or as if they dislike you.

--

I think you're right. A lot of people—or at least the kinds of lonely and confused people who often find their way to anon ask boxes—arrive in a fandom space looking for their Destined Best Friend like a wuxia hero falling in mancrush 30 seconds after meeting some dude. (Look, I was just thinking about Ancient Detective again, okay.)

That perception of coldness is definitely driven, in many cases, by unrealistic hopes.

But I think the problem runs even deeper.

I 10000% approach fandom as my life. My OKCupid profile was balls-to-the-wall crazy fandom shit to weed out the weak. Aside from my college roommate (according to her—but this is the woman who wrote her college diary as Harry Potter fanfic, changing all our names to HP ones, so...), basically all of my offline friends are fanfic nerds and have been for decades.

But...

While I'm a very loud and TMI person in many ways, I'm also an emotional clam. I'll tell you I laughed or that I was angry five seconds after meeting you. I won't tell you I was sad or vulnerable. You gotta reach the ten year mark for that or something. 🤣

Even as a person who prefers fandom friends and an extrovert who is always open to new friends, I still don't just instantly fall for every geek I come across. I've had those love-at-first-sight-but-platonic experiences. They don't happen very often, but they do exist. The most intense one I can think of is somebody I met at a bunch of cons one year, but then I moved across the country and don't go to those cons anymore, and she's not online much. Boo.

The holy grail of fandom friendship happened to me: A bunch of us met about ten years ago via a meetup, and we somehow just gelled. Part of it was random chance in terms of who showed up, what their native personalities were like, and how much free time they had, not to mention whether they lived a long or short drive from each other. Part of it was that I was having weekly dinner parties. We'd have liked each other regardless, I imagine, but we wouldn't have come together like that without regular interactions during the time we were getting to know each other. Side people have come and gone, but that main group coalesced all around the same time, and we're pretty solidly all friends with other individual members of the group as well as being a group together. We have a stupid name for our friend group, it's that much of a Thing. (TBH, I suspect that the level of gelling that happened is why new people haven't usually stuck around. It probably feels hard to break in.)

I'm not saying this to brag but because the interesting thing is that I tried to get that to happen after I moved away, and I couldn't. It wasn't possible to recreate the magic. I made friends, but I never succeeded in making another group like that. I might have been able to with more effort and time and fewer trips back to see my old group, but effort alone wasn't enough. IMO, it requires both a lot of luck and the right effort at the right time. Proximity matters a lot too if you live in a place with horrible commutes. I know several other fannish friend groups like mine around here, people I like who like me, but I'm not part of their pods because we live at least an hour apart and we just never get around to visiting.

A lot of the fandom best friends I know of, people who've been close for 10, 20, 30+ years, are people who meet offline too. They may live near each other, or they may see each other at cons. A lot of them also have private chats of some kind with just two or just a few, in a space that's safer and more intimate than a big fandom discord. I don't think you have to meet people offline to be besties, but many humans form friendships better face-to-face. (So even if that's not you, it may apply to people you want to be friends with.)

--

The point of this self involved ramble is that I too, despite my friendliness, do not warm to overshare-y randos in discords that quickly.

I want fandom friends for life whom I'll still know when I'm old. That is what I'm here for.

But I've also had very close, long-term friends, and I understand that it takes work. I also understand that genuine intimacy is slow to develop. Barfing out your angst creates a false sense of intimacy very quickly, but it doesn't result in the same kind of bond as working up to it.

What matters most is some intangible cocktail of personality traits. You have to approach the world in compatible ways. Your senses of humor have to line up. Shared specific fandom interests matter a little. Overall fandom interest matters a ton to me personally. But a lot of it is "are we compatible humans?", and that's not something you can easily answer just from a couple of discord chats.

--

I think some fans who try to make friends too quickly are interpreting other fans as standoffish not just because those fans aren't doing what they want but because of fundamental misunderstandings about what's possible.

Feelings aren't controllable.

You can engineer situations that make them more and less likely. (Doomscrolling-->more anxiety, taking a walk through nature-->more peace of mind, doing fun activities with people-->more positive emotions about those people, etc.) But what you're doing is planting a seed and watering it. Some seeds are duds. Some were misidentified and grow into something you didn't expect. A seed is just potential. It's not a guarantee of a mature plant.

I fail at befriending people all the time. I too strike out.

Friendship is like romantic love: sometimes, there's nothing wrong with the person, but you're just not feeling it. Sometimes, it hits you right away. Sometimes, it grows from knowing someone a long time. And some people can only feel it after knowing someone for a while.

Going into something thinking only about your needs is shooting yourself in the foot. You have to think about what makes humans tick. If it's love at first sight for both of you, great, but it won't usually be. That's not how most bffs happen.

--

I think many people dream of some kind of fictionalized version of In The Soop where they're on a bucolic vacation with their eternal besties. And it is possible. But you've either got to put in a decade of work first or have your eternal friendship imposed on you by a talent agency and a bunch of reality tv editors.

[measuringbliss]

<3

OKAY THAT'S SO NOT FAIR!!!

I wrote a video script on Edelgard (specifically why I find her fascinating but also why as bisexual representation, she doesn't escape the usual "queer=evil" trope inherited from the Hays Code, which feels weird to talk about for a Japanese game but the American soft power probably shaped at least slightly some cultural expectations around the world and also, people didn't wait for the Hays Code to demonize sexy people)

Anyway I think I'm too lazy to actually turn it into a video? I'm not in the most rationally bestest of places to edit a video right now. I'll see what I do with it.

I didn't want to rant about that though

I want to ramble about Glee but I actually have no idea what to say because the fandom as it currently is feels... very weak.

Weak in multiple ways:

- lack of content. I guess it was more popular on LiveJournal, but I just can't find much stuff on Tumblr. That's what I miss from the Harry Potter fandom, you had multiple repositories for meta, you had multiple places for discussion, even your local language community was probably pretty well developed. Was some of the meta reaching? Absolutely! But it was fun, and there was A LOT. Fanfic wise, there was so much choice, and there still is! Obviously, there's still a lot, but it doesn't feel the same with the author just insisting on being a pain. I was invested in that fandom, and there was *always* new stuff coming out. Even your rarepair had GOOD content. It's something that is thoroughly lacking with the Glee fandom, even though it had a huge presence. Nowadays, only two ships have any visibility on Tumblr and that is Klaine and Brittana. Which, great! Gay canon couples, we stan, whatever. But as soon as you step outside of this, it is THE VOID. Good luck finding one (1) satisfying fic for your ship. I had to resort to using ffnet for the first time in years to find interesting stuff! *FFNET!!!* And I do realize that both source materials are completely different and HP lent itself much more to analysis and mysteries and stuff. Whatever you think about She Who Must Not Be Named, HP inspired a lot of us to just... write! I have a novel-length HP fanfic that I just kept wanting to write for, and even though I eventually gave up and wrote a summary of the last few chapters, it inspired me in spite of my ADHD. Nowadays I'm not inspired except for horny stuff, because I'm a horny gremlin. There hasn't been any other fandom like it, and a lot of works deserve much more than what they get. Even awful movies deserve people writing meta and stuff. But fandom on Tumblr is chaotic af and HP motivated a lot of people to create communities around it, specifically for HP. It's something that we'll probably never get again and it's sad.

- so yeah the Glee fandom feels weak firstly because there's practically no content. The second thing and I touched on it a little bit, is that the content isn't varied at all. Only two ships are considered, and the activity is almost exclusively gifs sharing. I've seen the show, I know what they look like!!!! I guess Tumblr was key in making gifs a major component of fannish activities but I'm pretty much not sensible to that. There's a few metas out there but even then it's only for those couples. And I know that the Glee community used to be huge and DIVERSE, because the show itself mentions several times SHIP NAMES and in particular, Faberry is joked about in later seasons even though it's not canonical (notably with Kitty saying something like "If you're going to go all lesbo, get it on with Quinn, I heard that the whole world is cheering for you") . Like, "Furt" (Finn/Kurt) is mentioned in S2. Season 2!!!! There was a big fandom and it got so loud that the show kept referencing it (and fanservicing it, hello to the Quinntana hookup, a surprise to be sure but a welcome one). But this content is nowhere to be seen. Ffnet is the main hint that there was something, but Tumblr is empty. I guess they were all on LiveJournal? I know there were heavy ship wars (Brittany literally mentions IN THE SHOW that she can't get with Sam or Artie–I don't remember whom– because there's hords of fangirls who ship her with Santana and they'd make his life hell) and I understand how these conflicts could sour people on the show (hello Hannibal Twitter fandom from 2020 or 2021) but it's still so weird to expect to be able to interact with resources and reflections and even just reviews... and you don't find anything. It's weird! I had the same issue with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but

1. Actual books have been written about Buffy and its fandom and there's a term for that kind of stuff, Buffystudies I think.

2. Buffy aired as the modern conception of Internet started setting in, so fandoms didn't have such centralized spaces and I understand it can be difficult to find them today. It was still very lovely to stumble upon that Spike/Xander fanfic archive.

Also, Buffy had naturally more interesting stuff to think about because it was, from the start, shrouded in prophecies, metaphors, and the likes.

Glee fanfics are all about their Starbucks AU. I'm exaggerating, but also kind of not? Not judging on these AUs, but it's not something I seek out.

So lack of content, and lack of varied content. I have nowhere to go to talk about Furt, Seblaine (well Seblaine does have its fans here) and so on. The Glee fandom also seems to be VERY homogenous. Everyone hates Will Schuester because he's a creep. Everyone hates Finn because he outed Santana. Everyone hates Finchel because they're Finchel. Everyone loves Furt, "but only as friendship". "The S4 newbies suck." "Shooting Star is an awful episode." "Sue should be in jail." and so on and you just see THE SAME. DAMN. OPINIONS. EVERYWHERE.

(Doesn't help that the show itself never knows if it's honest or satire, and YOU CAN'T EXPECT THE SAME THINGS FROM BOTH. Yes, Sue never goes to jail. YES, WILL IS INAPPROPRIATE. THAT'S THE POINT. DO YOU KNOW MANY TEACHERS WHO STASHED DRUGS IN A STUDENT'S LOCKER JUST SO THAT THE STUDENT WOULD PARTICIPATE IN THE GLEE CLUB?! OF COURSE NOT. OH MY GOD. People always talk about realism with this show and you motherfuckers, HANNIBAL IS A MORE REALISTIC SHOW THAN GLEE. Outside of being homogenous, Glee discourse is so asinine. The writing is so inconsistent that wildly different interpretations of the characters are completely possible. I–Ugh! Fiction discourse is already bad most of the time, but if you don't get how the source material prevents you from applying real-life values to it, your media literacy is pretty damn low. I will concede and repeat that the show's writing didn't do it any favor. Even the first episode never knows if it's a parody or a heartfelt drama. Goddamnit.

The show is still entertaining by the way.)

I feel like it's the kind of fandom where different opinions were shushed or something because EVERYWHERE, I see the same exact comments. Oddly enough, the Glee subreddit seems to be the current healthiest place for the fandom? Which is weird because you know. It's Reddit.

Like I don't know, with the Hannibal fandom you could (before The Event) totally say that Hannibal (the character) sucks, that Hannibal is great, that S3 is totally the worst, or the best, that Will/Brian is more compelling that Hannigram, etc. There was some kind of lightness where people didn't care too much and there was a lot of weird (and lovely, because weird is good) stuff and VARIETY.

The Buffy fandom has more defined mindsets (you're either Team Bangel or Team Spuffy, either you love S6 or you hate it, but everyone agrees that S7 sucked to some degree) partly due to its age, but there's still a variety of content. Hell, there was a lot of stuff that was discussed and envisioned that would get you harassed for years if you so much as talked about it today.

I don't know, I feel like fandom sucks nowadays.

Well seems like I had a lot of things to say, in the end.

[lorenfangor]

What do you think all the people Sauron or Crayak wanted dead had in common? I think I'm missing some of the finer points (I know Aragorn and Faramir and Beren that has to count for something lol) but is the point just that they're all very good men?

okay.

I have written like six different versions of this, but I'm going to try to keep it brief-ish. (the relevant background here is that I've been involved in Tolkien scholarship for years, and been well-versed in Tolkien on a fannish level for going on two decades; I have a lot to say and trying to explain it concisely is not my forte, lol)

ultimately, the common thread of all the people I mentioned (and people I didn’t mention, like Celebrimbor, Maedhros probably, Túrin, etc) comes down to this quote from Jake in The Forgotten:

“Not much of a plan. But I was the leader, and a leader has to give people hope. Even when he doesn't have much himself.”

The people I compared him to were High Kings (Findekáno, Aragorn, Finrod) and high-hearted lords (Barahir, Húrin Thalion) and brave warriors who fought to keep people safe and not for the glory of battle (Faramir, Beren). They clung to the hope that all would end well, even when they couldn’t see it, and they fought to make the world a better place even if they weren’t sure they’d live to see that better place. They kindled hearts, and passed down wisdom, and defended the weak and the frightened. They were destined - because fate is a very real thing in Arda, fate and free will intertwine and play off of one another - to be great leaders who propelled their people into new futures and brighter dawns, or to foster alliances and friendship between different races, or to bring about the end of hardship and strife, or some combination of all of those things. They were kind, and compassionate, and respectful of those around them, and capable of incredible acts of self-sacrifice like sneaking alone into the strongholds of a Dark Lord solely to rescue a single person or drawing all of the enemy’s attention onto them as a sacrifice play. They spat in the face of dark gods (literally, in Húrin’s case) and never backed down from the onslaught of evil, because the world might be going to shit but the people living in it right now need heroes to hope on and be inspired by.

That is the kind of person Sauron always both wanted dead and actively tried to kill. Sometimes, like in the cases of Barahir and Finrod, he succeeded. Sometimes others did the dirty work for him, either his underlings or his superiors. Sometimes he didn’t get what he wanted.

The fact that Jake Berenson is specifically included in that list, when those are the qualities everyone else shares? It speaks volumes as to the kind of man he was capable of becoming and perhaps even destined to be, and the fact that he was broken down by evil and personally marked for death before he even hit adulthood is heartbreaking. “You might have been the next Beren Erchamion” is a hell of a thing to see when you look at somebody, and a hell of a tragedy to bear witness to when you see him fall apart thanks to the efforts of the forces of evil.

Fucking hell, Crayak, I hope you get sandwiched between a pair of black holes and stuck there forever.

[atlantis-scribe]

Okay I really do love Atlantis, but the amount that some people woobify Rodney actually drives me crazy. And I actually love Rodney as a character but like my boy's an asshole sometimes!! like he's not a perpetual victim, let him be wrong about stuff and grow and improve as a person!! (also the recurring theme of having random women in his life be abusive for... no textual reason?? is a little sus) like I'm getting to the point where I can hardly (1/2)

(2/2) enjoy hurt/comfort with Rodney bc I'm so wary of this... which just makes me sad 😭 Really sorry for ranting in your inbox you are my fave Atlantis blog and I like your take on Rondey

hello there!

please don’t apologize for ranting. my inbox is always open to rants. they’re encouraged, even! (long as I get to rant back lol)

and my oh my is this one of the topics that also get me going, particularly because 1) Rodney is also my favorite character, 2) I, too, see this woobification tendency, and 3) it’s complicated af & touches on several running themes not just in Stargate but in almost all fandoms.

• the Rodney Woobification is ancient practice. the SGA (specifically McShep) fan community has been around for a while now, and the Stargate fandom as a whole is even the birthplace of many established tropes that people still use to this day (Daniel Whump, anyone?). I understand the appeal. hell, I love angst and hurt & comfort for reasons almost exactly the same as other people who woobify characters love to do their thing. I don’t always comment on it (I don’t wanna be That Dick raining on other people’s parades) because it’s a slippery slope that so often leads to outright gatekeeping. there’s really just a fine line between being critical of fic characterization — being ‘true’ to the source material — and having fun with fannish works (specifically, using art as an outlet to do the most bizarre things polite society would ostracize you for)

• that being said, I am also not a big fan of woobie!Rodney. there’s a reason why I had such a visceral reaction to the Post-Trinity Phenomenon & the Lemon Chicken trope.

you have to understand, I came into the fandom a little over two years ago. about a decade too late, really. all the stories have been written, the takes taken, and the discourse over & done with. it’s pretty lonely, but the fun is in trying to sift thru what the OG fans left behind. so to stumble upon such a treasure trove of fics with the same running theme and have such a fierce ‘Nope!’ reaction was pretty memorable. I love Trinity because the Rodney in that episode was allowed to be his most obnoxious, his most arrogant, his most unlikable, but still remain layered & nuanced & complex, and that’s pretty damn good writing there. I saw the ‘asshole’ label when I bought it, after all. I certainly don’t want it erased or buried under a rug. I want it explored.

• canon writing is a-whole-nother problem altogether. it’s hard to justify exactly what makes Rodney (& Sheppard & Weir & everyone else) genuine or true to form, because —  let’s be honest — SGA is not a prime example of stellar TV writing and/or storytelling. it’s addictive as all hell, but it’s severely flawed, and that includes how it handled consistency in characterization. this brings us back to the dangers of gatekeeping and yelling at other people for how they write (however beloved) ‘public domain’ fictional characters.

• what I want to advocate now in terms of woobie!Rodney is for other fans to maybe examine why they like Rodney. is it because we are all just weak for white, asshole geniuses who are shippable with other white (often same gender, often male) assholes? if that’s the case, and you want to continue making your content, go ahead. it’s frankly a pretty boring reason, but we’re all boring nerds here. some more than others. just, you know, tag properly & don’t be rude to other fans who may have different reasons.

me? I love Rodney because yes, he’s a white asshole genius (that archetype is like crack for real) but portrayed so wonderfully by a very talented actor that it left me with a nuanced character whose gaps I can fill with attributes I want to analyze as a lifelong fan of the human condition who occasionally writes fics for popular media. woobifying him would be a disservice to how I see him & the things I love about him, which would then render me unable to enjoy the Rodney I ‘stan’. that would defeat the entire purpose of why I engage with the fandom, because at the end of the day, I’m here to have fun.

• so no matter how much I (and you as well, I suspect, my dear anon) would want to police this practice, it just isn’t our place. the best (and the right) thing for us to do is curate our fandom experience and create the content we actually want to consume. who knows, we may just convince / inspire enough people so there’d be more of the same kind of things we enjoy out there :)

- kit

[bedlamsbard]

Writing tag game -- tagged by @lessattitudemorealtitude

how many works do you have on Ao3?

Discounting podfic on which I’m listed as a co-author, 24.  My concept writing doesn’t go to AO3 and the vast majority of my Narnia fic was never cross-posted there.  (Or reposted there, actually, I think most of it pre-dates the AO3.)

what’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,050,810.  oh, huh, I didn’t actually realize I’d passed the one million word mark (probably with Crown).

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all of these ended up being Star Wars, which is not a huge surprise.  Morning will probably reach Dirt in the next couple of updates, I’d guess.

Immutable, or, Five Times Obi-Wan Kenobi Compromised His Jedi Ethics for Anakin Skywalker -- this is not the oldest Star Wars fic on there, but I think it’s the second oldest. people just really like 5 times fic.

Wake the Storm - did you know that when I started Wake I assumed it was a very niche trope in what was, at the time, a pretty dead fandom? the kudos count on Wake actually outnumbers Gambit by more than 1600 kudos, so the number of people who go from Wake to Gambit is a lot lower than you might think.

Queen's Gambit - a significantly lower kudos count than Wake or Immutable.  Gambit’s such a weirdo of a story, tbh, I can’t be surprised by anything about Gambit anymore.

On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone - about 600 kudos less than Gambit, so less difference between Gambit and Backbone than between Wake and Gambit.

Dirt in the Machine - another older fic.  I’d rewrite this one if I cared enough to do so, because it’s not at my current standards (Immutable isn’t either, for that matter) and I kind of wince every time I get comments on it.  this is the first one of the top five to have below 1K kudos.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I’ll usually respond to direct questions, but I very, very seldom respond to comments in general.  This is an old standing policy of mine that’s now more than a decade old -- it used to be I’d wait twenty-four hours before responding, then I’d respond right before the next chapter went up, and for a while I’d only respond to comments on the first few chapters of a story.  Now I just mostly do not.  The reasons for this are: (1) many, many years ago, I lost my temper pretty badly at a comment on a fic of mine (this was pre-AO3, this was back in my LJ days), and after that I moved to the “wait twenty-four hours” response so I didn’t say anything without thinking about it, (2) I do go back and reread comments but I hate rereading my own responses, (3) I prefer to know the comments numbers on my fic are all from actual comments and not from me saying “thanks for reading!”, (4) I can’t take that kind of responsibility for answering every single comment, man.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Of stuff I’ve written in the past ten years? (I can’t really remember before that.)  Maybe Backbone, because it ends on that pretty upbeat “yay team we’re going to be rebels now!” note.  or Devil’s in the Details (other side part 1), though I don’t really want to consider it a finished fic even though it’s technically finished; it has another “yay team we’re back together (minus Ezra)” ending.  I tend to end on complicated and reasonably open endings, not like...happy endings.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably Gambit for the “everything is super fucked up” factor and also the fact that I never wrote the sequel. plus it ended with the entire Wake trio split up in a whole new universe, plus back in the Gambitverse Amidala not able to go back to Naboo, Ahsoka shunned, Palpatine’s new empire, Rex trapped in the Gambitverse, etc.

do you write crossovers?

I did in my Narnia days. I don’t anymore. Working in widespread fandoms like Star Wars or the MCU is basically like writing crossover fic within the same universe, anyway.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

*hysterical laughter*

...yes. yes I have. it’s the reason every time I get a comment notification on Gambit or Wake I freeze in absolute terror. people HATE Wake and Gambit.  I hate to say never, but I will probably never write those characters or in that series again.

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

not really?  I’ve done relatively non-explicit sex but it’s not something I’m super comfortable writing, especially in recent years. I’m much more likely to do a fade to black.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think Gambit got scraped once when it was still in progress and my response was something along the lines of “good luck, bro,” given the whole “still in progress” thing.

have you ever had a fic translated?

I’ve gotten a couple of translation requests but I can’t recall if anything’s ever been translated.  (Or if I responded to them...I know a few I forgot to respond.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, back in my Narnia days.  Some SW concept writing and that ended so badly that I’ll never co-write again.

what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Kanan/Hera, of course!

what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

gods, Dust in the Air, my Narnia Last Battle AU.  Back when I started it in 2008 or so I didn’t have the self-control or discipline I do now, even if I had a lot of the worldbuilding ability and the ability to conceive of if not execute long plot arcs, and I broke off more than I could chew.  If I ever went back to it I’d probably have to do a complete rewrite and it has the unique problem among my WIPs of being the last major fic I wrote in present tense -- I now write exclusively in past tense.  The bones of the story are good, I’d just have to go back to the bones and not just pick up where I left off.

what are your writing strengths?

Plot, worldbuilding/environment, action.  I also do genuinely think I’m very good at characterization too, but I think they’re all inter-related.  (Except the action, that’s me alone.  I love writing action and I generally get a lot of compliments on my action scenes.)  look, I know it’s conceited, but I’m good and I know I’m good, and I’m good in a pretty well-rounded way for the genre I write.

what are your writing weaknesses?

brevity. can’t do it.

honestly, there are others, but I don’t write stories where they’d come up.  I think I have a tendency to get to bogged down in dialogue in a way that I’ve never quite solved.  I also let my emotions take over too much and not in the good fannish way, in the “I’m having a fucked up relationship with canon or fandom and it’s affecting my ability to work” way.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

please stop having your Asgardians speak Latin for magic, man, that’s my feeling on it.

okay, my feelings on it for me -- I’ve sprinkled bits and pieces of Huttese, Twi’leki, and tee-tiny bits of other stuff here and there in fic.  I’d not be comfortable doing more than that because the only other language that I really feel comfortable doing anything significant in is Latin, and even then I’d hesitate. also, like, Latin! not a language that comes up in the fandoms I write in.  even then, like -- any extended dialogue should be intelligible to the audience, and I don’t expect my audience to be able read anything other than English; I’d rather just say “they switched to Twi’leki to say” or something similar.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

like, online? Harry Potter. for things that I didn’t post online because I didn’t know what fic was yet? probably either The 10th Kingdom or The Mummy.

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

On the Edge of the Devil’s Backbone.  I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, I think it’s the most tightly plotted, I think it’s got the best worldbuilding, I think it’s remarkably consistent thematically, and it was, at the time, a fic that I was very devoted to finishing or dying trying, because I was going through it at the time and some of it was connected to the fic.

I don’t tag people, but please go for if you want!

[lilydalexf]

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

Interview with RivkaT

RivkaT has 28 stories at Gossamer and 270 stories at AO3, so she knows her way around fanfic and fandom. She's also a co-author of one of the most well-known X-Files fics of all time, Iolokus. I've recced that here before, along with some of my other favorites of her stories, including And Dance by the Light of the Moon and Into the Woods. Big thanks to RivkaT for doing this interview.

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

I think it's amazing! Writing styles have changed so much, along with everything else, that it's really nice to know they're still being visited. I tried to show my son the pilot episode, and it didn't move him at all, but it's good to know it's not forgotten.

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

I made a number of good friends, and had my first taste of bitter fandom battles. I made dumb mistakes and, I hope, learned a bit about navigating fandom spaces. My long-time writing partner MustangSally taught me that it was always worth blowing the budget in writing--go over the top if you want. I put that to good use in my next big fandom (Smallville).

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

I started on Usenet! Then mailing lists, and webrings, but mainly the Gossamer list.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

(1) Serials are different than works posted all at once, and have different strengths and weaknesses. (2) There are many ways to write a good fic, and somewhat fewer (but still a large number of) ways to write a bad one. (3) Most good fics are bad to some readers, and many bad fics are good to some readers, and that's okay. (4) Summaries can often instruct many readers how a work is meant to be perceived, especially if they already know you as a writer--the importance of authorial intent is clearly not dead and may be unkillable! (5) Fandom has awfulness and greatness in it because fans are people.

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

Dana Scully. Enough said! (Ok, it was Jose Chung's From Outer Space specifically, but Scully generally.)

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I mentioned to a friend that I was really into the show and she said that if I went online there were people writing stories about the characters. I knew about fanfic from childhood fannishness (Star Trek etc.) and so I went looking on this vaguely-understood thing, the internet. At the time I didn't have a computer that ran Windows so I logged onto Usenet at home and used Pine and Mosaic (an early search engine). When I wanted to see pictures I had to go to the computer lab at school.

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

An ex where I don't have too much memory of the bitter and drawn-out breakup and just have vague nostalgia for the good times. Of course all that was about the show, not the fandom!

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

A bunch, including BTVS, Smallville, and Supernatural. I loved them all--my relationships with those fandoms were equally intense, but associated with different times in my life and therefore different availability of time and other resources. I wish I had that new-fandom love again, but right now it's just not happening for me, even though I've experimented.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Dana Scully, because she is Dana Scully: smart, driven, and good at her job, with occasional daddy issues. Subsequently, Lex Luthor, Olivia Dunham, Dean Winchester. I like characters who are driven by a sense of mission and who are really good at their jobs: competence porn!

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

Not very often; I last did a rewatch about thirteen years ago.

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

I rarely revisit the XF, but I could definitely be persuaded. I read a fair amount across various fandoms now, but mostly it's dabbling.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Waaaay too many to mention. But if I had to choose: Jane Mortimer's The Sin Eater. Totally blew my mind about what fic could do. [Lilydale note: it really is a great fic!]

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

I go through patches of love and hate for my own work. Right now I might pick my SPN/Smallville crossover Under Darkening Skies because I had fun with the character voices and I got at least one great set piece out of it (mannequins in a hell dimension).

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

It seems unlikely but I have learned never to say never.

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

For the past few years it's mostly been Yuletide, but I'd love to get back into it more if I can be inspired.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have no idea! Usually it was something that bugged me about an episode, or a chance to play with a classic trope, or a random news story that would spark an idea.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Not much of one--it's a variant of my nickname that was available on AOL and I managed to snag it on most platforms fans use, which has been lucky!

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Most of my friends are fannish and know everything; my family knows generally but basically doesn't want to know specifics, which is fine with me.

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

Archive of Our Own.

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

Dana Scully Forever!

(Posted by Lilydale on August 18, 2020)

[mollyamory-again]

And then I wrote a really long reaction post for Endgame...

Here’s the short form:  <3 <3 <3... ??  @#(*$A)(@#*!?! <3.....<3 ....?<3? <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 !!!

The super long form is below the cut...

So, I went into this movie with a lot of feelings, and I came out with a lot of feelings, and it's taking me some time to process them.

The first, and maybe the most important thing I want to say, is that regardless of my personal fannish/emotional reaction to some of the events -- the film itself was an absolute triumph.  I mean - it was amazing.  There were a great many things to love - and that is a list that includes some things I hated.  Love/hated.  Both!  The fact that they could bring a series of films that spans over a decade together in a way that had people laughing and crying in the theatres, often both at the same time - it's just truly, truly awesome.  It says something that they were able to build these real and true characters who feel important enough that their fates can actually break our hearts.  

So I applaud that, and I hope the film industry takes a good long look at these films and learns from them.  Audiences are willing to wait for the pay-off, we're willing to tackle difficult things, we're willing to fall in love with what we see on the screen if the writers and producers and directors put the effort into allowing it.

That said...

I really liked this movie overall, but I went into it really wanting two specific things for myself, and I didn't get them.  In fact I kind of got the opposite of them, and a lot of my coming to terms with the movie has been coming to terms with just... not getting what I wanted.  And finding a way to be okay with that.  

I wanted Tony to live - and if you're back here behind my spoiler cut, you know I didn't get that one.  It was really hard to lose him.  He was my favorite character in this whole crazy cast. I loved that he could be so wrong sometimes, and with so much utter conviction.  I loved that he could be terrified out of his mind and then just do the terrifying things anyway, because somebody had to, and he could.  I loved how smart he was, and how vulnerable he was, and how he built walls of words to defend himself and define himself.  I loved how hard he loved the people that HE loved, and how much he was willing to do for them.  I loved how great he was with kids (and I love that he got one of his own!) and I love how that seemed at least in part because he never finished growing up himself.

So while I am wrecked that this is the end of Tony in this particular strand of the comics universe, I can't deny that it is 100% true to who he was. He was always going to be the guy who would do this, if it needed to be done.  And it did, so he did it, and it broke my heart - but in the end I have to be okay with it, because yeah.  That was Tony Stark, distilled down to his purest self.  I hated it, but I also loved it, and more importantly I think, I bought it.

I also really would have loved to have a kind of on-screen farewell to my pairing, and I didn't get that, either.  I'm a Science Boyfriends kinda gal, and there was almost zero interaction between Bruce and Tony - there was zero relevant interaction.  But it is what it is - this was never going to be everything to all people, and that's one of the relationships that didn't get priority.  I'm okay with that, too - mainly because its absence means they didn't do anything TERRIBLE to it, either!  When it comes to my pairings, I'd far rather TPTB leave them alone than do something I don't like.  That said - it would have been nice if they'd you know, exchanged a couple of lines?  And it would have been SUPER nice if Bruce had been around to react to Tony's death. Getting past it, getting past it.... ;)

My biggest fear going into this movie was that it would kill my fannishness about the Avengers.  I just recently rediscovered it, and I've been writing like a MAD thing.  I've stayed up too late writing, I've gotten up way to early to write... I've written through nights when I was supposed to be raiding with my online pals, or watching stuff with my housemates.  I've definitely done quite a lot of writing when I was supposed to be working! And it's been fun, and it's felt really good, and I just didn't want to lose it.  I missed fandom and other fans, and I missed caring so much about characters and pairings.  Having it all back again these past couple of months has been a blast -- so I went into Endgame a) pretty sure they were going to kill Tony and b) pretty sure that killing Tony would kill my fannish joy.

I am happy to report it did not.  I'm still in love, and I'm still writing like crazy.  I gave myself some pretty stern talking-tos in the lead-up to the movie, along the lines of "Are you really going to let a couple of rich white geekboys decide what happens to YOUR Tony Stark?" and in short form, "CANON IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME!"  I think it helped.  I'm still here, anyway!

There are a few other things I really didn't like.  One - the CGI for Bruce was a horror show for me.  It landed right in the Uncanny Valley, and I could barely stand to look at him on screen.  Every time he showed up, it was like a cartoon character appearing in my live action show.  I think that actually may have helped me with the Tony thing, though -- because it yanked me out of the movie when Bruce was onscreen, and that gave me the distance I needed to not become a puddle of shivering misery on the floor when Tony died saving the world.

Don't get me wrong - I really do like that he's able to integrate now.  I like that he has control.  Still, I'm not sure this is a road I ever really want to go down in my writing.  I like Hulk too much to want to see him essentially killed by Bruce (which is kind of how I'm reading this.)  I get that Hulk IS Bruce IS Hulk and if I were his therapist I'd be all over it.  But I'm not his therapist - I'm one of his slashfic writers.  And as such, I prefer him splintered and angsting over it.  :)

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Natasha, and I'm not sure they're particularly coherent.  I think if Endgame had happened exactly the way it did, WITHOUT the disgusting Ultron lines about how she's a monster because she can't have kids, I'd be fine.  As it is, Ultron happened and then Natasha gave herself up for a guy with a family, and from a purely Doyle-ist perspective I find that sequence of events suspect, and deeply gross.  

On the other hand, from a purely Watsonian perspective, I fully agree with what  <a href="https://cesperanza.tumblr.com/post/184622436895/i-cant-believe-that-as-a-prominent-woman-in">cesperanza had to say about Nat</a>, so I'm just going to let that stand for me, too.

Probably the final thing I didn't like was fat!Thor.  I do get the arguments on the other side of this, that it's cool to show even a super hero can get depressed and live off cheez whiz and get fat and disaffected. But I also think that's not all there is to this; I think you don't make Chris Hemsworth run around in a fat suit without on some level doing it for the point-and-laugh. And I find that kind of "joke" toxic and disgusting.  I'm not going to go on and on about it here, but in short just - a world of no from me on that.  

So what's my score so far?  2 things I wanted but didn't get, 3 things I didn't like?  But on the bright side...it's now time to move along to the bright side! And the bright side is pretty damn bright.

I was incredibly happy that Tony and Steve were able to repair their relationship.  Civil War was such a tough movie to watch, and while there was at least a thread of hope for them at the end of it, this resolution was a long time coming.  They're so very different in their worldviews and methods, but so very alike in their absolute dedication to protecting people and doing the right thing - the friction has always made perfect sense, but getting to see them come to terms with each other ... that's something I have really wanted for a long time.  I was extremely sad watching Tony just chew into Steve at the beginning of Endgame, but not at all surprised - Tony was completely done in, physically, mentally and emotionally.  Just seeing Tony that physically wasted and weak was hard.  Steve's reactions to it were perfect, though, just perfect.  I don't think I could have asked for any more than I was given for the two of them.  

I loved Tony's relationship with his daughter - in fact, I love Tony's relationship with every character below the age of majority that he's ever been on screen with.  Tony may be my OTP (One True Parent) in fact - he's just so deeply interested in these kids (Harley, Peter, Morgan) as human beings.  And he treats them oddly as equals, while still somehow managing to parent well for each of them.  He's hilarious and snarky and caring and he connects.  I don't know, I just adore it.  We didn't get to spend a lot of time with Morgan, but it was obvious she adored Tony and was well on her way to growing up to be just like him, and I wholly approve.  

And before I leave the topic of kids - Tony mourning Peter broke my heart, and his love for Peter when he came back knitted it back together again (that hug omg, </3 -> <3) and then Peter's breakdown when Tony was dying, finally calling him "Tony" instead of Mr. Stark or sir...there it goes, heart broken again.  BROKEN.

I and the rest of the universe loved Steve wielding Mjolnir (and Thor KNEW it!). We all saw this coming from way back at the party in Ultron, and a part of what this series of movies has managed to do that I love is take moments like that, a billion movies ago at this point, and pay them off one by one.  Sure, it's fan service, but because they were patient, it feels earned.  I adore it.

I'm going to wrap this up for now because if I don't, it's never getting posted - I have a ton of thoughts and even MORE feelings about this movie, and I'll be posting more of them because how can I NOT.  But I do want to talk a little about one of the major things that literally filled me with joy: 

The return to Avengers 2012!!! <3 <3 <3

I just want to go back and live there - like, I want to build a tinyhouse with a telescope in the window and just stare at it all from the shadows forever.  I could literally sit for days upon days of "what happened in Avengers 2012 around what we saw on the screen in Avengers 2012" - that could be an entire TV series and I would tune in for every freaking episode.  It was SO. MUCH. FUN!  From "feel free to clean up..." to "take the stairs" and "SO MANY STAIRS" to Loki pretending to be Steve and Loki stealing the tesseract and poofing out to Thor saving Tony with his hammer and both of them so jazzed about it... OMG.  I just love it all, and I'm so happy they did it.  I loved everything around it - I loved Bruce trying half-heartedly to smash, I loved the Sorceress Supreme up on the rooftop fighting the Chitauri, I loved Bruce getting smacked out of Hulk and Hulk on a lounge chair with a sunhat over his face.  EVERYTHING.  I just.  <3

I went into Endgame expecting the worst for my favorite character, and I got the worst for him.  But the more I think about this movie, the more I find that it's a happy place for me. It gave me what I didn't want and it made me like it.  Like - a LOT.  I went into it expecting/fearing that it would kill my fannishness about Avengers, and it's done the exact opposite - it's brought me back into fandom, back into contact with fans, back into thinking all the thoughts and feeling all the feelings and wanting to share them with other people who are thinking and feeling about the same thing.  

I feel like this entire series of movies, this slate of characters, this universe they've built - it's a gigantic wonderful amazing heartbreaking heartmending accomplishment, and I'm just super glad it's all here, and that I got to experience it all.  

(And I can't wait to write a metric fuckton of stories that ignore it! Tony may be gone in this timeline, but he's never going to die in mine, damn it!)

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

(I posted this as part of a thread earlier, and @otatma asked if I would cut and paste it into its own thing, so if this sounds familiar, that’s why!  The inciting incident was a discussion about how people will get very emotional, to the point of aggression and genuinely antisocial behavior, over differing preferences in fictional ships, which -- yeah, strikes most people as super weird the first time they run into it, but quickly becomes just a thing that we all know will happen, just a regular part of Life in Fandom.)

I used to find this weird, but after lo these many years in and around fandom, I finally twigged that shipping wars, or really most fannish disputes, are never about fictional characters.  The kind of people who find it easy to get invested in and noisy about fandom stuff have a particular – gift? talent? weakness? thoroughly value-neutral tendency? – that allows them to weave their own life stories and recurring issues into stories they read.  People angry or defensive or super protective of a character or a relationship between characters – that’s *never* about the story in an objective way.  It’s always about the person speaking.

And that’s okay if you’re hip to it and you use it productively, for Art Reasons or to help you gain clarity or feel less alone – shit, ask me sometime about why I’m at risk of losing my goddamn mind when people say things I don’t like about Ronon Dex or Castiel or Quentin Coldwater, three characters defined by their sense of lacking a homeworld, of being stranded where they don’t fit and will never belong.  I am not a neutral observer here.

The problem is that a lot of people are reactive about this stuff.  They ship based on what they feel would meet their deepest needs, or validate the stuff about them they most need validated, and that’s fine, unless you don’t have the discernment to realize that what a character or plotline or ship means *subjectively to you* is not objective reality.   Then suddenly criticism of The Thing that you’re all tied up in feels like an *objective,* tangible, hostile unwillingness to see or hear who you are.

And people who feel like they’re being intentionally and maliciously denied that kind of validation and acceptance – well, it’s easier to understand how that feeling unlocks some fighting instincts in a lot of people.

It takes emotional calibration and maturity to be fully comfortable going, “Yeah, this has nothing to do with me and I don’t need to respond to this.” Like, I’m much, much better at it than I used to be, but I’ve still had to eliminate certain people from my fannish world because I was finding it such a struggle to watch them be OBVIOUSLY WRONG in certain specific ways that I was taking far, far more personally than I should’ve been.  I’m sure they’re lovely people, but they were mashing buttons for me that – like, life is just too short, I needed to move on.

So I get it. And in Ye Elder Days when I was a slip of a fangirl, I sometimes handled that tension in ways I can’t recommend.  It’s hard, I get it.  And line-crossing that seems obvious from the outside doesn’t necessarily feel obvious when you’re defending vulnerable parts of your own psyche.

Still, you practice to get better.  You practice setting boundaries for yourself and holding to them – “no name-calling or death threats even if you’re sure they deserve it” is a good one to start with. You practice accepting that other people may not see things like you do no matter how right you are or how well you explain, and that’s just a life thing that never goes away.  Mostly, I think the core practice is learning to say to yourself, “Self, this reaction feels really strong, given the low stakes involved. What is this signaling me to pay attention to in me?”

But not everyone’s there. Some people are just going to feel a thing and get mad and lash out – particularly when internet fandom is probably a much safer outlet for expressing pent-up aggression than anywhere else in that person’s real life.  It sucks, people should try harder and be kinder, but we’re all where we are in life, you know?

Anyway, tl;dr it’s never about the thing, it’s always about whatever the person has projected onto the thing.  So it’s less bizarre behavior than it seems at first glance.

[tunglo]

I felt this response in my marrow because, well, it’s one thing to say we write for ourselves, the truth is that we wouldn’t be posting it for all to see if we didn’t hope for some kind of response. This is kind of rambling, but I just wanted to share some thoughts and maybe some hope that though it’s tough, you can work past that fear of ‘nobody will like this, why bother in the first place?’

Because these days I care about it a lot less. I write a lot of prompt fic and, yeah, it sucks not to get any feedback for a particular fill, but overall I take a lot of enjoyment in twisting it to fit my particular headcanons/characterisation, etc, and generally creating more stuff that is exactly to my own taste. And that’s not to say I’m not easily swayed by feedback. If someone explicitly asks for more of something that wasn’t my fave, chances are I’ll try and prioritise it in the quest for validation/engagement - but I still write the other things too, albeit more slowly.

I think what helped me get to this point was the few years I spent focusing almost exclusively on exchanges. And what helped the most was ironically the ones I least liked doing. The sign-ups where you match on a fandom/ship but then hate all their prompts with that instinctive ‘did we even consume the same media!?’ zeal. Because the whole point of those was writing for someone else’s enjoyment and... ultimately I didn’t like it. I produced fic that the recipient liked, some that even went down well with wider fandom, but to me those fics always felt weak and wanting. Artificial, I guess. The fic I was most proud of / wanted to reread, etc, ended up being the stuff where I actively went with what felt ‘right’ to me, not what I knew the fandom would most appreciate. (e.g. a happy ending would be most instantly gratifying, but prompter said they were okay with whatever was written and I knew the fic would have more lasting impact without it.)

It eventually put me in a position where a fic being popular wasn’t the most important reason for writing it, and that lead me to just producing what I liked rather than what I knew would be a hit with fandom. (and, imo, better writing because of it) e.g. I was really into Reed900 and DBH fandom for a while, which is pretty much all fanon, but when I started writing I just did not like any of the popular takes. So I ignored them and wrote the kitschy robot romance I wanted... those fics eventually became some of the most popular for the ship, but it took a long time to gather that momentum and I could never have sustained it without caring about me foremost and prevailing fannish trends second. 

Same with my current obikin obsession. I know my approach to the ship isn’t yours - actively hating on Anakin is like 90% of my enjoyment at any given moment of writing, lol - but I also knew going in that ‘repressed virginal space monks + disregard for established fanon’ would not be the most popular combo. I’m super lucky to have found a regular readership and a few likeminded people now to exchange thoughts/squee with but, again, it took time to get there. A few years back I would definitely have struggled to get over the disappointment of certain fics falling flat while more obviously fan service ones picked up feedback. But now my major driver is ‘I want more fic with this premise and characterisation’ instead of ‘I want to my fic to be popular’, and it is genuinely liberating.

It’s also helped me in other ways - like the fear of blocking and muting popular people in the fandom whose takes I find irritating or whatever lest it impact on the reception of my fic, for example. Just generally centering my enjoyment of my hobby, rather than what other people think of me and my output has made such a big difference to me. In the past I’d be so afraid of offending someone, or being cancelled, or a myriad other things. Now I’m much more confident in basically stating: this is what I like, if you have a problem with it go elsewhere.

So, yeah, the transformation is not 100% complete or perfect. I still get downers over response to particular fics, irrational jealousy that somebody’s else’s similar take was more popular, and indignant outrage that people genuinely can’t see my vision on all aspects of fanon is superior (/sarcasm!), but I have managed to find a better balance between writing what I want and seeking fandom’s approval. I hope one day you’ll find that too. xx

Hi, so I don't know want to come across as rude, but where are you getting this impression that the popular obikin fandom trend for Anakin is for him to be a himbo disaster? Like yes, I've definitely seen that in the fandom, but I wouldn't say the majority take that view. Mostly I see the fandom writing him as possessive, competent, angry, volatile, and complex. I see both 'popular' and 'non popular' writers writing him with a mixture of these characteristics, and I think it's a bit offensive that you're saying popular writers in the fandom tend to only write him in one way, because I don't see that at all and I check the ao3 tag everyday.

I also find it quite rude that you seem to think that the less 'popular' writers and their work are any less loved in the fandom. I still love, read, rec and talk about these fics, and it is the community's responsibility as a whole to spread the love for those fics. So why not rec some yourself? Why not write something that may not necessarily be 'popular' by fandom standards and you may find a handful of people who agree with you and you'll make some great friends? Why not build your catalogue of your preferred characterisation and maybe it'll become the norm? Why not do any of these things instead of disregarding and disrespecting the hundreds of writers who do do those things, and do it because they love obikin and not because they want to be popular.

TBH, anon, I don't advise my way of thinking for anyone else. It's mine and probably a product of my own anxiety, and I wouldn't encourage anyone to share in it.

I also find it quite rude that you seem to think that the less 'popular' writers and their work are any less loved in the fandom.

This is just how I think of stats. I honestly don't know how else to think of them. Like, if I have an Obikin memory loss fic fic that gets twenty kudos, but there's another Obikin memory loss fic with two thousand kudos, the only objective conclusion to me is that this other fic is more loved than mine. Now, there might be another reason for that: the other author might be a better writer, or maybe their fic leaned into the trope more in a way the audience preferred, or maybe they used more popular characterization. But to me, it's a no-brainer in this situation that the more popular fic is more loved by fandom.

But this mindset is only something I apply to myself. I'm never going to look at someone else's work and go, "Wow, twenty kudos, clearly no one loves you." And I would encourage anyone else to back away from that kind of thinking, because believe me, it's not helpful.

Why not write something that may not necessarily be 'popular' by fandom standards and you may find a handful of people who agree with you and you'll make some great friends? Why not build your catalogue of your preferred characterisation and maybe it'll become the norm?

Honestly, anon, because I think I'll fail. I'd love to have people to brainstorm competent!Anakin Obikin stories with, or to be able to jump into a chat about what your favorite rarely-mentioned talent of Anakin's is from either Legends or canon. But so many times before, in both different fandoms and in this one, I set out to write a fic I thought for sure people would enjoy and that I'd find a friendship or two through it, only for it to bomb and no one to want to acknowledge it. And I was just left mortified by my failure and never wanting to repeat the experience.

And I know this is a me issue, to an extent. I know it's not normal to have so much anxiety over fic writing, but I don't know what to do. I constantly feel like I'm doomed to fail whenever I start a new fic, because I know I'm not good at giving the fandom what it wants, and I know that I'll see that reflected in my stats and then have to face how much fandom doesn't want me writing the ideas I want to write most. I write for fandom fic exchanges, and I see certain requests by the same people popping up over and over in different in exchanges, asking for Obikin or another pairing or a gen prompt. And each time, I so badly want to write the prompt or pairing for them, and sometimes start fics to give to the person requesting that pairing, but then I always chicken out because I'm too worried that my fic will disappoint them and that I'll have to see another fic fail.

I don't know what to do to put an end to this way of thinking/acting. Every New Year, my resolution is to write more, to increase my fic output, but I can never convince myself that anyone truly wants to see fics by me, so I'm just left paralyzed about wanting to write but knowing I'll inevitably write the wrong thing. And then I get nothing accomplished. I feel resigned that the same thing is going to happen this year, and I don't know how to prevent it.

I still love, read, rec and talk about these fics, and it is the community's responsibility as a whole to spread the love for those fics.

And I thank you for it, nonny. Sincerely and without snark. I wish more people in fandom were like you and willing to give fics a chance even if they're not popular or already being recced all over the place. I genuinely appreciate you for what you're doing.

[terriblelifechoices]

25, 26, 37 for the shipping meme! :)

From the Shipping Meme.

25.  Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of the gifs and graphics or similar?

Ahahahaha.  My friend, I do this all the time.  I think that’s how half of my fannish obsessions get started. 

I don’t know if other people do this, but for me, this is a carryover from when delicious was still a thing and you could use it to bookmark fic and also, see how many other people had bookmarked something and what they thought of it.  It was a really great way to curate your fannish experience, and then yahoo sold it to avos and suddenly everything sucked.  Most of the fannish people I followed switched over to pinboard.in/ instead, and I still follow some of them.  And if someone whose fannish taste I trust dips their toes into a new fandom, I will check out the fic, because why not?  Maybe I’ll find a new fandom.  (NGL, sometimes this ends badly.  Like, curiosity killed the cat badly.)

But honestly?  I got into Fantastic Beasts because someone I followed started reccing Graves/Credence fic, and I wasn’t terribly interested in seeing the movie before that, so I think it’s working pretty well for me.

26.  Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping?  Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?

NGL, I had to outsource this question to my sister, because for someone who is actually pretty decent at pattern recognition/prediction, I remain an oblivious dumbass about my own quirks.  I feel like I should get points for recognizing that I am an oblivious dumbass, though.

She texted back with: “hahaha, well, in my critical textual analysis of your work, with the full authority of my English PhD, I would say you have a shipping tendency towards the tragic!badass!protector and the powerful!cinnamon roll.”  (My sister is the smart one and I am really proud of her.  Also, her answer totally cracked me up.  She’s not wrong, though.  I am super weak to that.)

37.  Do you have a favorite trope and/or AU for your OTP?

*Flails.*  There are so many how can I choose?

Okay, so, for Graves/Credence, my favorite trope is probably fae!wizards.  The entire concept fascinates me.  There’s something about the intersection of myth and fictional worldbuilding that is intensely cool.  The two best versions of it I’ve seen are the king of oak, by saltpans, and the Cold Iron and Old Blood series by Kimi_Ichisaigosuki.  Both fics are these gorgeous, glorious works on the power of old magic and how that fits into the existing canon.  They’re lush and evocative and seriously amazing.  If you haven’t read them, you really should.

[dsudis]

Hello! I'd like to know what got you into Stucky fandom. When did you realise that you ship those two? What movie (1st, 2nd, 3rd?) or gif set or post was it? When did you have the realization you want to write something about them for the first time? Have you ever read metas?

Hi! 

I remember being... pretty invested in the fact that Steve LOST Bucky after seeing the first movie--I actually went and looked up the comics canon about what happened to Bucky and discovered the whole Winter Soldier storyline, and after that felt pretty confident that they would someday be reunited and Things Would Be Okay. But like most of the rest of fandom, I was more interested in the Steve/Tony possibilities than Steve/Bucky at that point.

Then Avengers came out and a) clearly did not set Steve and Tony up for the kind of profound friendship they had in the comics, and b) established that Tony and Pepper were a thing, and I am honestly kind of weak for canon het ships, so I pretty much stopped reading Steve/Tony and wandered off into ... Generation Kill and Teen Wolf and whatever else I was fannish about at that point.

And then Winter Soldier came out, and, from my years-earlier researches, I KNEW that this meant Steve would be reunited with Bucky, but I was kind of ehhhh about the movie for whatever reason--I just wasn’t super into the Marvel orbit, and I guess the movie looked like it was setting them up as antagonists, which is not my preferred dynamic, so I didn’t even go and see it right away when it came out. But after a week or two I did go and see it with a friend, and went “...aw, Bucky,” but still not feeling particularly compelled to DO anything with it, fannishly speaking.

And then I went and saw it AGAIN, with my BFF, and came out of it ranting to her about the impossibility of writing in that canon. “I mean, how could you even ever write Bucky’s POV?? His head is just short circuits and blanks, like. How. How could you even write that character.”

And then I woke up the next morning and thought, Wellll, okay, maybe there are a couple of things he knows. He could build from there. He knows he’s a soldier. He knows there’s a war. And then I wrote Daylight Breaks, that day, and ... just kept going from there. :D

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Tony & Bucky were in the beginning part of their real first date when the Avengers alarm goes off setting off a chain of bad luck that ensues. Tony ends up with an injured leg, their homemade dinner ends up both undercooked and burnt to a crisp. Tony gets food posioning, Dum-E blasts them with the fire extinguisher & Steve wont stop intruding on their date. As far as first dates go not good but they just want each other & cuddling can be a good fall back bc Tony gives the best cuddles.

“What?Do I have something on my face?” Tony brushed frantically at hisgoatee.

“Nah,”said Bucky, flushing a little. “I just can’t believe we’reactually doing this.”

“Wehave been dancing around it for a while, haven’t we?” That wasprobably an understatement; it had taken them over a year of piningand the intervention of Sam, Natasha, Bruce, and a small herd ofgoats to get them to admit their mutual attraction and finally make adate.

Coffeewas probably softballing it a little bit, but it had been a rockypath just to get them to the point of friendship; it was probablybest to take things slow and easy. And the coffee shop in the lobbyof Stark Tower was convenient, had a carefully-vetted staff that knewbetter than to get all fannish, and had really good coffee to boot.

Tonycollected his foam-topped mug and carried it back to the quiet littlenook they’d staked out. “So,” he said, and his phone beganbuzzing and emitting a distressed-sounding series of beeps that hadbeen carefully selected because it could cut through even Tony’sbest engineering haze. “Damn it!” He pulled it out and flipped upthe holoscreen, which immediately expanded into a situation map.

Bucky’seyes rounded and he scrambled for his own phone. “Ah, hell,” hegrumbled, scrolling through the sitrip. “Guess we’ll have to takea rain check and go be heroes.”

“Lookslike it,” Tony agreed grudgingly. Still, he let Bucky take his handto help him back up out of the chair, and they shared a weak smile ofmutual sympathy and frustration before parting ways, Bucky demandingdetails on the terrain and Tony barking orders for JARVIS.

[mobile readers, ‘ware the readmore!]

Doombotshit hard, but they weren’t exactly an alien invasion, so the wholefight was wrapped up just in time for dinner. Tony shot ahead of thequinjet on the way home instead of pacing it like he usually did, andstopped off at a market for supplies. By the time the ‘jet landed,Tony was in the workshop unpacking his purchases.

“J,ask Bucky if he’d like to join me down here for a quiet dinnerafter he’s had a chance to clean up.”

“Ofcourse, sir. And might I suggest that you clean up, also?”

“What?”Tony looked down at himself; he was still half-in the suit, andspattered with hydraulic fluid from where one of the Doombots hadgotten in a lucky shot. “Yeah, that’s a good call. Thanks, J.”He rushed through the rest of his preparations and shoved the dishesinto the oven to keep warm, then scurried off to the workshop shower.

Bythe time he’d finished and gotten dressed, Bucky was already in theworkshop, though he wasn’t alone. He was leaning on a table,arguing with Steve about whether the hit he’d taken to the head during thefight merited medical attention.

“–ifit were anyone else, Buck, they’d be laid out!”

“Butit ain’t anyone else, Steve, it’s just me,” Bucky sighed. Hebrightened considerably when Tony came around the corner. “Tony,hey!”

“Hithere,” Tony returned, feeling weirdly shy. “Steve, relax, I’vegot this. I’ll keep an eye on him to make sure he’s notconcussed, okay?”

Stevehemmed and hawed, but finally agreed. “Oh, and the suit took somedamage, too,” he added. “A rip between the third and fourthlateral plates. Can you fix that, or…?”

“Yeah,sure,” Tony said. “Bring it down whenever.”

Stevefinally left, and Bucky leaned against the counter of the littlekitchenette that Tony mostly used for storing smoothie ingredientsand protein bars. “Smells good,” he said.

“Yeah?It’s been a while since I’ve made my mom’s lasagne,” Tonyadmitted. “But it’s good, you’ll like it.” He was justreaching for the plates when the smoke alarm went off.BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP–“Oh,shit, shit, shit–” He grabbed for the oven mitts and pulled thepan from the oven. The cheese on the top was burnt black. “Shit!”

DUM-Erolled over, fire extinguisher at the ready, and Tony stopped himwith a sternly pointed finger. “Back off, you bucket of bolts, orI’m turning you into a coffee machine.” He looked back at hisruined creation. He’d set the oven too hot, he thought, trying tocook it faster.

“Hey,it’s okay, it happens,” Bucky said, soothing. “Come on, I betif we scrape that off, the rest will be great.”

“Whatthe hell kind of lasagne doesn’t have cheese on the top?” Tonycomplained. But he didn’t have any other options, so he peeled offthe burnt cheese and cut slices for them both.

Itwasn’t too bad, if a touch al dente… Okay, more than a touch.Okay, the pasta hadn’t baked nearly long enough to soften thenoodles, and they were still crunchy. It was slightly hilarious towatch Bucky trying to pretend he liked it, but Tony stopped him afterthe third bite. “No, stop, that’s just… It’s terrible, okay?I know it’s terrible, you don’t have to fake it. Just… Stop.”He dropped his head into his hands.”

“Relax,Tony,” Bucky said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Shit happens.I really appreciate that you went to the effort–”

“SoI checked with the others,” Steve said, coming into the workshopwith an armful of uniforms, “and some of them need repairs, too,and I thought I’d just–”

“Stevie,”Bucky gritted.

“What?”Steve’s eyes were round and bewildered.

Buckypinched at the bridge of his nose. “Pal, I ain’t got a spare datefor you this time. You need to get going.”

“Spare…This is a date?”How about that: Captain America squeaked when he was startled andembarrassed. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize! I’lljust… go. Then.”

“Bye now,”Bucky said pointedly.

Theywatched as Steve hurriedly left the damaged uniforms on the nearestflat surface and scurried for the door. Bucky huffed as the doorclosed behind him. “Punk. Now, as I was sayin’…”

“Holdthat thought,” Tony said, suddenly queasy. He bolted for thebathroom and emptied his guts. “JARVIS,” he croaked. “Is itsome kind of poison? What’s going on? Did one of the ‘bots get meafter all?”

“Youseem to be suffering a mild case of food poisoning, sir,” JARVISsaid. “It should pass momentarily.”

“Whatdoes momen–” Tony had to stop and dry heave for a while. “Oh,god, someone kill me now.”

Awarm hand brushed through his hair, and when he looked up, Bucky wasthere, offering him a glass of water. “Here. Better’n havingnothing in your stomach, trust me.”

“Thisis not how I was hoping this would go,” Tony said. He took atentative sip of the water.

“Believeit or not, still not my worst first date ever,” Bucky said. He toldTony that story while Tony nursed the water, and that was okay –Bucky told it wonderfully, with great expression and just the perfectamount of exaggeration, and after a while, Tony was laughing, andBucky was smiling back, and–

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!

“Oh,shit, dessert!”Tonyscrambled up from the floor and made it to the oven just in time forDUM-E to empty the fire extinguisher all over him.

Tonywiped the foam from his face and glared at the robot. DUM-E had thesense to guiltily back away and return to the charging station. Tonyturned off the oven. He propped his elbows on the counter and droppedhis head into his hands. “Is it the worst now?”he muttered.

“Nah.I’ve got one more idea, okay?”

“Can’tpossibly be any worse than the rest of it,” Tony sighed.

“Yougo get cleaned up again,” Bucky suggested, “and then come an’meet me in the living room.”

“Theliving room? It’s movie night,” Tony protested. “Everyone willbe there.”

“Trustme,” Bucky said.

“Well,if you’re going to put it like that.”

Buckypatted his back, and left. Tony didn’t move from his dejected poseuntil he’d heard the door close behind him.

Everyonewas in the living room, as predicted. They were watching ThePrincess Bride,however, which wasn’t what was on the schedule.

AndBucky had somehow managed to wrest Natasha and Clint out of theloveseat, and was already holding a big bowl of popcorn. He tuggedTony down next to him, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders,fitting their sides together like pieces of a puzzle. “There,” hesaid warmly, balancing the bowl on their legs. “Don’t need to beall fancy. Just wanna be close to you.”

Ittook a little while for Tony to really relax into it, to begin tobelieve that no further interruptions were imminent. But finally,just as the grandfather was reassuring the grandson that Buttercupwas not going to be eaten by the shrieking eels, Tony snuggled downinto the cushions and let himself lean into Bucky’s side, lettingout a slow breath.

Buckynuzzled at Tony’s temple. “Still think this is the worst firstdate ever?” he murmured.

“Maybenot the worst,”Tony admitted, suppressing a sappy smile.

~ @27dragons

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

I used to find this weird, but after lo these many years in and around fandom, I finally twigged that shipping wars, or really most fannish disputes, are never about fictional characters. The kind of people who find it easy to get invested in and noisy about fandom stuff have a particular -- gift? talent? weakness? thoroughly value-neutral tendency? -- that allows them to weave their own life stories and recurring issues into stories they read. People angry or defensive or super protective of a character or a relationship between characters -- that's *never* about the story in an objective way. It's always about the person speaking.

And that's okay if you're hip to it and you use it productively, for Art Reasons or to help you gain clarity or feel less alone -- shit, ask me sometime about why I'm at risk of losing my goddamn mind when people say things I don't like about Ronon Dex or Castiel or Quentin Coldwater, three characters defined by their sense of lacking a homeworld, of being stranded where they don't fit and will never belong. I am not a neutral observer here.

The problem is that a lot of people are reactive about this stuff. They ship based on what they feel would meet their deepest needs, or validate the stuff about them they most need validated, and that's fine, unless you don't have the discernment to realize that what a character or plotline or ship means *subjectively to you* is not objective reality. Then suddenly criticism of The Thing that you're all tied up in feels like an *objective,* tangible, hostile unwillingness to see or hear who you are.

And people who feel like they're being intentionally and maliciously denied that kind of validation and acceptance -- well, it's easier to understand how that feeling unlocks some fighting instincts in a lot of people.

It takes emotional calibration and maturity to be fully comfortable going, "Yeah, this has nothing to do with me and I don't need to respond to this." Like, I'm much, much better at it than I used to be, but I've still had to eliminate certain people from my fannish world because I was finding it such a struggle to watch them be OBVIOUSLY WRONG in certain specific ways that I was taking far, far more personally than I should've been. I'm sure they're lovely people, but they were mashing buttons for me that -- like, life is just too short, I needed to move on.

So I get it. And in Ye Elder Days when I was a slip of a fangirl, I sometimes handled that tension in ways I can't recommend. It's hard, I get it. And line-crossing that seems obvious from the outside doesn't necessarily feel obvious when you're defending vulnerable parts of your own psyche.

Still, you practice to get better. You practice setting boundaries for yourself and holding to them -- "no name-calling or death threats even if you're sure they deserve it" is a good one to start with. You practice accepting that other people may not see things like you do no matter how right you are or how well you explain, and that's just a life thing that never goes away. Mostly, I think the core practice is learning to say to yourself, "Self, this reaction feels really strong, given the low stakes involved. What is this signaling me to pay attention to in me?"

But not everyone's there. Some people are just going to feel a thing and get mad and lash out -- particularly when internet fandom is probably a much safer outlet for expressing pent-up aggression than anywhere else in that person's real life. It sucks, people should try harder and be kinder, but we're all where we are in life, you know?

Anyway, tl;dr it's never about the thing, it's always about whatever the person has projected onto the thing. So it's less bizarre behavior than it seems at first glance.

[yomigaere]

Why I love Tokyo Xanadu

I just posted this gushfest to my Dreamwidth, and I thought I'd post it here too because I really want this game to have more fans; at the very least, I'd like to let people know just what it is I like about this game so much!

Cut for length, but there shouldn't be any spoilers.

What is Tokyo Xanadu, I hear people ask? To those who know nothing about it, it's an action RPG by Falcom, best known as the creators of the Ys and Trails series. TX takes elements from both of those -- Ys's action gameplay, plus emphasis on story and especially characters a la Trails, on top of using Trails of Cold Steel's engine in particular -- and throws it all into a modern Japanese setting instead of a fantasy world.

To most gamers, TX probably gets a lot more comparisons to modern Persona games. It is mainly about high school students who get involved in fighting otherworldly terrors and summon psychic weapons to do so, after all.

One big thing that separates TX from Persona for me, though, is that it's a whole lot more player-friendly. I admittedly never got very far in P3 and never actually played P4, but much of the reason why I stalled on it early was because I felt so utterly intimidated by the amount of time management involved in doing all manner of key things in the game with all their deadlines; it left me feeling like I needed a detailed guide to even play the game properly, which is not how I prefer to do things.

TX doesn't do that. It always lets you know what major quests are available in a chapter (though there's usually more that you have to find for yourself), which characters you can increase your relationship values with and how many opportunities you have to do so in the chapter, where you need to go to advance the story, and so on -- and when you do go to advance the story, the game tells you when doing so makes you lose out on optional stuff and makes sure that's okay before moving the plot along, so you always have the chance to get everything you want to do over with beforehand.

On the action front, combat is fairly straightforward but pretty fun, with an emphasis on targeting enemies' weaknesses by switching characters (all with their own fighting styles) on the fly. Dungeons are mostly quite fast to get through, too -- I think even the longest one only took me, what, half an hour the first time round? -- so you'll never be trudging in a given dungeon for ages. There's also some big ol' bosses to fight, which pose a good challenge.

As I sort of touched on further up, though, just because TX is an action RPG doesn't mean it neglects its story or characters; in fact, the characters are among my favourite things about it! While one could whittle them down to tried-and-true archetypes, they're very endearing and have a decent amount of depth to them, and they're nuanced enough to feel more like people than anime clichés.

I'll talk about Asuka as an example, because she's one of my favourites. She's basically the defrosting ice queen type, but her aloofness and tendency to keep people at arm's length is rarely to the point of being a downright asshole, and her sense of duty is always apparent; she'd more than happy to save your friend for you, she'd just rather not get regular people involved in the dangerous stuff she'd entangled with. (Kou, of course, insists on getting involved anyway because it's gotten personal for him.) Even before her character development kicks in, there's a touch of warmth to her. There's also little details like the fact that she has a thing for Japanese sweets (she lived in the US for several years before the start of the game). Oh, and it helps that she's very hot and badass, but that's just me going into shallow mode.

Speaking of little details, one minor aspect of the game I have a soft spot for is the fact that, after beating minibosses in dungeons, the characters sometimes compliment each other on doing a good job. Every character has a quote like that for every other character, which helps to give an element of camaraderie between party members.

There's also tons of NPCs to interact with! Aksys makes a big deal out of talking to every single NPC while playing, and it's easy to see why; they all have their own little lives going on and many of them have their own quirks, and since their dialogue changes every time the plot moves forward, many have their own character arcs outright.

What's more, the game rewards you for immersing yourself into the world of Morimiya City that way. Not only can talking to NPCs let you find hidden quests to do (with rewards to be gained for doing them, naturally), but the game remembers optional things to do. For example, if you take a character out for a boat ride at one point in the game, the next story event will acknowledge that this happened, and character development that NPCs go through as a result of doing certain quests will stick throughout the game instead of being forgotten by the next chapter. That kind of attention to detail is my other favourite thing about the game!

Oh, and the music's great, but it's a Falcom game so that's to be expected.

With all the gushing I've done, I'm not saying TX is a perfect game by any means. Its main flaws are that it gets off to a slow start -- it takes a while before you get to do any fighting -- and that the localisation has a lot of typos and inconsistent terminology. I've also seen people being unhappy that the voices are Japanese-only with no English dub, but outside of wishing that a certain part near the end had a few extra subtitles, it doesn't bother me at all (and in fact, I'd be worried about mispronounced names if the game did have an English voicetrack).

Other than that, I adore this game and I hope my fannish ramble might pique other people's interest and encourage them to give it a try. :3