#I also want the fandom to explore potential angst ideas too because no way they don’t have any

[chuchayucca]

YES SOMEONE ELSE WHO LOVES THE BOUNTY HUNTER TROLLS! I've been rewatching the second movie and I'm OBSESSED with them!

There is so much to love and explore about them from their designs, personalities, to theorizing and making headcanons about their species. They all stole the show when their scenes came up!

If you like the Bounty Hunters trolls, I suggest going through some scrapped concepts, scenes, and the initial concept of them because it's all very interesting.

Like this deleted scene, the Yodeling brothers were given the coolest introduction scene ever for any trolls in the series and THEY SCRAPPED IT. Bonus: it has some angsty/dark implications worth exploring, if you're into that.

From what I can tell, the original concept for the Bounty Hunters was they were supposed to be trolls who's music was dying/forgotten because of Pop. There's a bunch of scrapped characters here. (Very bummed at the fact we could have gotten mariachi trolls)

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Also technically, the Bounty Hunter trolls ***might*** have a birth place, the Hinterlands. Admittedly there isn't much information about the Hinterlands because it is a scrapped concept and it's only mentioned in the, The Art of DreamWorks Trolls World Tour book like twice but it's something. The Hinterlands are where scattered trolls without tribes and small troll groups who aren’t in the main six tribes are from, although in the wiki, it's mentioned the Hinterlands aren't home to these trolls either.

TBH, I still headcanon the Bounty Hunter trolls are from the Hinterlands but they left when they became adults because they didn't want to stuck in a hidden land of dying music and wanted to explore the world.

Sooooo I haven't moved on from the trolls world tour bounty hunters.

The reggaeton trolls and their really cool designs and music....

Hickory and Dickory's entire thing with playing the long haul in trying to get close to poppy to steal her string.......

THE KPOP TROLLS AND THEIR MISSED POTENTIAL AND AND THEIR DESIGNS AND THEY'RE REALLY CUTE AND LOVELY

And CHAZ THE FUCKING SMOOTH JAZZ TROLL!??!??!??!?! need I say more. I mean just look at him.

I am going to start. A fandom. Surrounding these guys. Just watch me.

They are so silly and I love them

[sitp-recs]

top 5 rare pairs? :)

Hi lovely, thank you so much! As you know I love babbling about these, kind feel bad that I didn’t include any femslash but I wanted to keep this short and include some sneaky recs as always :D hope that’s ok, would love to see your picks too!

1. HARRY/TEDDY MY BELOVED, sometimes I feel like I love them as much as Drarry as my adoration for Teddy Lupin (and Harry’s too, I’m sure) goes beyond this life, and the next. as always a big shoutout to @lqtraintracks for single-handedly seducing me into this ship back in 2012, thank you for your service 🫡

2. Harry/Ron, things like this fic by @writcraft and this post suggest that friends to lovers might be in fact the ultimate trope. it took me so long to get into the idea of them as a romantic ship, and even longer to start reading it because I’m picky af, but after I did they started living rent free in my head and there’s no way back. rip liv 🤡

3. Harry/Ron/Draco because I really wanted to include a triad, also a bit picky about them but @tackytigerfic’s foundational Aim For My Heart punched me in the solar plexus with feelings (ugh!!!), and I can’t really resist the pull now that @dronarryfest exists. I’ll take this chance to also mention my love for Dron which has superb fics like this and this, a really fun and refreshing ship with its own brand of humor and angst.

4. Harry/Sirius, look I’m a simple woman with simple fandom needs and age gap covers most of them lol I don’t read it very often but I ache for the angst potential of those hotdirtywrong vibes & delicious want x guilt moral dilemma that our Sirry champion @lqtraintracks explores so well. orrr we can go the hot & sweet route and still get ruined by tender wall sex, how dare you @maesterchill

5. Draco/Albus Severus is on this list solely bc of birdsofshore’s invaluable contribution including my all-time favorite pwp, and also my pal @sweet-s0rr0w who gifted me this breathtaking T-rated gem, how lucky am I!!!

Bonus: special mention to Sirius/Draco which I hadn’t considered before being slapped in the face by this gem by @ruinsplume and this gem by one @citrusses you might have heard of her 😌

ask me my top 5/10 anything!

[mdhwrites]

In your opinion does "The Owl House" have any re-watch value? Does the story, characters, characterization, writing, etc. hold up over repeated viewings or is the show played out after the first time through the series?

So I want to acknowledge that this is actually an awkward question. Not with how you phrased it or anything just... Period? Because whether something is rewatchable will mostly come down to personal taste and enjoyment. Some people find Horror movies to be great fun to rewatch while others may not see the point because you already know all the scare moments or answers to creeping dread. Some might find action movies exciting to rewatch while others need the novelty of a first rewatch. As such, my answer is very much so is going to be biased by the fact that I ended up not liking the show.

But... I broke essentially on rewatch in a way. A lot of people have shattered on TOH essentially from having to reconcile what it says versus what it does. A lot of this because TOH constantly kicks payoffs down the line and hints at potential it will reach. It is constantly making the journey suffer for the promise of a grand finale. And, well... A lot of people have agreed that the shortening did not force their hand to break multiple themes in the finale, or take Amity's character or a bunch of other things that bloated the series and never got a proper payoff, such as the Collector.

This format of TOH I think is actually what makes it so hard to rewatch unless you are the ultimate fan of it who will notice nothing. S1 is labeled as boring, a complaint I even agree with as someone who mostly likes S1 still. It spends the most time setting up plot lines though in episodes that are a pretty safe seven out of ten, or worse. Amity episodes can escape this problem decently often, being fun in their own right, but that's why the fandom only acts like half, at best, of S1 even exists. Most of it is easily forgotten because it's very forgettable. Not like in a S1 of Amphibia way where it's all so much fun but also so much of it that they can blur and be hard to separate but just in a "I just wasted 20 minutes of my life watching an okay kids cartoon" way. The only thing that helped those episodes not feel that way was this idea that it was building towards something with these characters.

And... After the shock of things like the Lumity Kiss being real, I don't think S2 holds up for being the majority of those payoffs. Amity and Willow? One of the most explicitly kicked cans? Seen interacting on the same side before either addresses the "We're not friends' thing because of Eclipse Lake, so that's pre-shortening and they still didn't decide to address and then address it badly. Luz's magic is wrapped in a plotline she's not a part of and has no real reaction to even. It's just "Oh, we're just making bullshit up now instead of finding glyphs? K." Amity's parents are wrapped up, in the same episode, early S2, in a very similar way where Amity is barely a part of that episode but now her core angst and excuse for being a bad person? Dealt with and out of the way, at least until they randomly decide to try and say Alador TOOOOOTALLY wasn't a bad guy. That he hated Odalia too. Totally doesn't contradict literally everything that came before, something that would be much more sharply noticed on a binge rewatch. Like... It cannot be understated that by the point most plot threads in TOH wrap up, they were introduced and left to rot for so long that half the time, the fandom was starting to get UPSET during the runtime for the lack of any exploration or conclusion. Long hiatuses didn't help but at its core, even when it was running people were wondering when we would get satisfying answers to thing and rarely were they happy about it.

I think this is a core part of why ONLY the shipping community seems to have clung to TOH. That or people who are exploring the show's missed potential with characters like Belos or the Blights. The fandom has had to either commit to the one thing TOH did do well, its shipping (that comes with so many fucking asterisks) and its potential baiting. But the latter also means you have to recognize why it failed in the process of doing your exploration of the work.

So will some people enjoy rewatching it? Of course. There are people who probably like rewatching the AtLA movie though because the die hards are die hards. Do I think from a casual perspective you get much out of rewatching a random episode, let alone binging the series again?

No. I just think disappointment that the main series will leave you, which will eventually no longer be tempered by the reputation of it having been shortened, will only get worse. It is not a tale worth seeing again, so I hope I see you in the next one.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[callivich]

Some finale musings…

I think for viewers of the show, seeing Ian and Mickey together - happy, married, celebrating their anniversary - is a satisfying ending in a lot of ways. They had so much trauma and angst and drama over the years to the point where it seemed like they would never get a happy ending. So watching all of that and seeing them end up in a good place in canon - it’s a pleasing arc for their ship.

For people who are even more invested and involved in fandom - I think it works well. I don’t think the writers intentionally wrote anything specifically for fandom but what they did write sort of inadvertently gives both a satisfying ending and one that also allows us to keep shipping them. Their ending in the show doesn’t feel like an end of a story….more like an end of a chapter. It’s a good ending but it’s an open one.

It gives us their happiness but it also gives us lots of topics to explore too. We can see it as frustrating because there’s certain things that didn’t get explored deeply or things that weren’t written well in canon. But I like to look at the potential it gives us as fans to explore all the different possibilities for their future.

We get them living in a new place - how do they cope on the West Side? do they stay there or move back to the South Side? what’s it like for them to live together just the two of them?

We get a brief mention of kids - do they become fathers? or do they stay as uncles? how do they finally come to decision about what they want?

We see them start a business together - what’s it like for them to work together? is there business successful? do they continue with it or try other jobs?

Frank dies - how does Ian deal with it? what’s it like for them now they’ve both lost their fathers who were violent and abusive towards them?

The mention of Ned in HOS - does Ian come to terms with the abuse and trauma he’s been through? and on the subject of trauma and abuse…does Mickey come to terms with what he’s been through? they’ve had so much angst in their past which will have an effect on them for the rest of their lives but in what different ways does this impact them?

We see them navigating married life and attempting to communicate - how does this communication continue/grow? does their view of marriage and what it means for them change or evolve?

Parole is often mentioned but one day it will end - what’s it like for them to finally be free from that? how does their time served affect them? do they manage to stay out of trouble?

There’s also some less serious topics to think about - how do they end up decorating that empty apartment? what do they finally name their business? do they get a pet? does Ian start gardening?

There’s way more topics and ideas that I’m not mentioning (both serious and not so serious) but….you get the idea. There’s a lot left for us as a fandom after the finale.

I’m kinda rambling here 😅 but I like that the finale gives us all sorts of jumping off points for fiction and art and discussion and debate. I enjoy seeing everyone’s different interpretations and ideas for what the future is like for them. They don’t end up dead or in jail or separated or miserable (like some other canon ships in different shows) - we’re not left with angst and sadness….just happiness and hope for the future. We can have fun exploring all the different ways their future might turn out - we’ve got endless possibilities for them.

[ghouldump]

HIIII I was wondering if you have any writing tips?? I’m in awe of your work and you make it seem so easy!! Don’t feel obligated to help if it’s too much to ask I just would love to know!!

hey, yes, of course, i'd love to help 🩷 i would assume every writer may have their own way, but i’ll give you a rundown on what has helped me:

— music to set the tone. this is more personal; i love music and i listen to anything, as long as it sounds good. during this time, is usually when i decide if i will do angst, fluff, etc and a general idea.

— imagination. this is the fun part, i’ve joked about maladaptive daydreaming, but i was kind of serious (lol). you have your general idea from the music, and you can start imagining how you want things to go.

— turning the vision into words. this part can be frustrating, but you don’t have to have everything figured out, starting writing. beginning to form the same imaginative thoughts into words.

— grammar checking. i think it is helpful to have something like grammarly to try to fix as many errors you can spot, or if you want to improve your wording.

— limitations can be well limiting. i think one of the most important tips, i would say is, don’t limit yourself, especially if you plan to write something as interesting as gothic horror. not only should you find the beauty within these characters, but darkness. if i’m writing about vampires, the scariest thing they could is not just drink from a mortal, but could potentially be as sinister as you allow because they are literally damned.

— fiction is fake at the end of the day. no matter the fandom, you don’t have to stick to an exact plot. you could easily make up anything with your desired characters because, in the end, it is all fake. (example, lestat is a human explorer, on a voyage for treasure when he discovers the beautiful newly crowned king of the fae, louis)

— patience. the draft option is like my best friend (lol) sometimes you will only have an idea of what you want to write about and sometimes you will take days to come up with something, so give yourself grace and have patience because there will be times when you can't think of anything to write.

— comparison is the theif of all joy. lastly, i struggled with this years ago, when i first started. worrying about my mutuals who also wrote, this or that, because i felt like they wrote better, had a better plot, or had more interactions. however, as i continue to write, i fall in love with the craft more and more, so much so that while i enjoy to read others writing, i can appreciate my own. all of my fics that have the least votes are my favorite, while the ones that have done well, i didn’t like too much.

i hope these tips are helpful for you, and if not, then i hope that you are able to find your own methods. you can do it! you think of your idea and let it flow from your brain as you type it. as easy as it looks, i still struggle with things, one of them is becoming deeply emotionally invested in my stories, and depending on the genre i am writing, i am left feeling gloomy, angry, frustrated, etc. feel free to message me again, if you have anymore questions, because i don’t mind helping in the slightest. 🩷

[blackfilmmakers]

Ya know, it's becoming real clear that there are some fans who only value Miles to the extent that he is in service to Gwen and their headcanon(s) of her. Whether its conscious or subconcious, Gwiles' fans dialogue around Miles shows that for them, Miles' existance, his story, etc. is meant to primarily give Gwen her happy ending, to help Gwen have her epiphanies so she can live her best white life. He's only good and uwu to them, to the extent he benefits her. It's partly why the creators making the creative decision to have Miles' be so infatuated with Gwen when, in the comics, Miles is not pressed for Gwen at all, annoys me a lot. They risk perpetuating these fans miguided idea (and reinforcing racist real world views) that Miles exists to affirm Gwen's desirability and she can do with that what she wants, his job is to wait on her and tell him when he can move on with his life. It also ties in with the same fans outright dismissing Margo. To them, there's no way Miles could actually find Margo, a Black female attractive and intriguing - even though Miles loving and strongly desiring woman of color in the comics is absolute canon. To much media has reinforced a false narrative that black men and women loving and desiring each other is rare and not enough. And so, in their eyes, Margo can't be an actual threat for Miles' attention and affection, she also must exist in service to Gwen, to show that Gwen has complex feelings and can get jealous too. Miles feelings, his identity, his desires, his safety, his mental and overall health, his community, his family, his hurt, his trauma, his pain, his full potential, all of it should be pushed aside because to them GWEN's feelings, her angst and struggle should take priority, and he should just understand that his suffering is worth it because she gets to grow.

From what I’ve heard Miles and Gwen in the comics have gotten together a few times, and were even married at one point(somehow across dimensions???) But like you said he mainly dates girls of color, Black girls even, and we don’t usually get that. I was disappointed we didn’t get to see so many Black girl characters in the first movie

I don’t really care for shipping aspects, but all I know is that ITSV showed these two having a slight crush before forgetting about it, because there were more important matters on hand. And yknow, that all felt natural

So seeing Miles go into this crush on Gwen even harder, to the point where he practically forgets about the other Spiderheroes from the first movie until he sees them again? It didn’t seem right. It went from “I want to see my friends who understand me, and also helped me when I needed them” to “I really miss Gwen, sad angst teenage hours”

And yeah I was pretty annoyed how much the movie focused on Gwen, to the point where I questioned if this was her movie or not. There were some aspects I enjoyed, but also stuff that felt unnecessary given how little information we still had. Simple flashbacks would suffice to get the point across that Gwen was in trouble and she was taken in by the other Spiders. The first movie does this

We could’ve spent this time exploring different Spiderverses and the new characters. It just dragged on for so long, that by the time we get to Miles, I nearly forgot he was in this

I’m not so into this fandom that I can say I fully understand the shipping dynamics here. But yknow, if this is literally like every other fandom, then I don’t see why I can’t believe a good amount of Gwen stans make the experience unbearable

[here-be-bec]

20 QUESTIONS FOR FIC WRITERS

thanks @commanderfoxdeservesbetter for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

105! hit 100 over febuwhump.

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

167,182!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

star wars: the clone wars is the main fandom, but i've also written some stuff for alex rider! and a few gift fics for jedi fallen order, marvel, and doctor who.

4. What are you top five fics by kudos?

no. 1 is 'connection is what saves us' (which makes me happy, because it only recently overtook second place and i like to see a fox-centric whump fic on top).

no. 2 is 'the food's too sweet'.

no. 3 is 'an acceptable loss'.

no. 4 is 'no stranger to guilt'.

no. 5 is 'dead men feel no guilt for dying'.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes! sometimes it might take a few days, but i always love the opportunity to ramble about my fics some more!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

given that 99% of what i write is whump, this one is a tricky one. if you hate major character death then i recently started writing a few fics for the 'kill a character bingo' prompts. but if you, like me, believe in fates worse than death, then i would probably say 'cut abruptly short' had the angstiest ending (lining up with canon in terms of the tragedy of order 66, with an added element of angst from the theme that i used for the fic - "force sensitivity as horror").

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

another tricky one! because despite everything, i've realised that i've actually been pretty good with at least writing a hopeful ending into my fics. so with that in mind i'm going to take the opportunity to plug my favourite (only slightly angsty at the start) crack fic of all time, 'follow the leader'. perhaps the happy ending is more implied than explored, but still, :D

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope!

9. Do you write smut?

not at the minute, i suck ass at writing romance so it would probably only ever be part of some depraved angst bs.

10. Do you write crossovers?

not yet, but i have a few that i'd like to take a stab at one day, if the inspiration strikes. bioshock, batman, doctor who... many possibilities.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

luckily, not that i'm aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

i am currently co-writing a fic, but it is a long way off from being published! really really looking forward to sharing it, though, it's going to be a beautiful combination of angst, crack, and time travel :D

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

i don't really ever ship anyone! it just isn't my cup of tea, usually, unless the ship is dangling the carrot of angst in front of me. the only ship i'd say that i ever enjoyed exploring was thoschei (the doctor/the master) from doctor who. lots of potential for a supremely fucked up or fun dynamic, haha. i suppose i should also mention shadowgast from cr2, i was rooting for that throughout the part of that campaign i watched live.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

well if you want the nice answer, i'll say the isolation au as a whole, but that's because i don't think i'm going to run out of ideas for it any time soon! if you want the less nice answer, then i have been struggling with the long fic sequel to 'dead men feel no guilt for dying' for over a year now. i have loads of cool scenes outlined and fun ideas, but still haven't been able to settle on an overarching plot that i like! it's very annoying. massive kudos to multichapter fic writers!

16. What's your writing strengths?

i think i do well with structuring my fics. i enjoy figuring out how to write things that flow together, or mirror other scenes. one of my favourite fics to write was 'reiterate, relearn', which i think is a prime example of this!

17. What's your writing weaknesses?

hate writing dialogue! very rarely does it come naturally, which i think is because i characterise everyone sliiiiightly different in most of the fics i write, depending on the au that they're in. most of these guys also don't have much in the way of canon dialogue to go by!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

hahaha, mando'a is really something i should have tried to incorporate more of! i like it as a fandom/legends trait for the clones, but it would require me putting actually thought and planning into my fics.... and alas!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

if we're counting before i knew fanfic was a thing, i guess it would be pokemon mystery dungeon oc fics in a notebook when i was like, 8. if you're talking fic that i've intentionally written, is was for the jse ego fandom; a bit of a niche community surrounding certain arg-like videos by jacksepticeye!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

oh boy.... too many choices. as a i say above, i think 'follow the leader' was definitely one of my favourites to write, but i think my favourite as a whole has to be 'in thanks they will keep him forever'. not putting something from the isolation au here was a tough call, because those first three fics were genuinely a blast to write, but 'in thanks' was such fun to plot out, and so self indulgent - wait! that means i totally have done a crossover fic, technically! but i won't count it, because 'in thanks' only contains a single monster from doctor who, adapted to star wars for coruscant guard horror purposes. as i say, very niche, very self-indulgent, and i definitely i want to write more stuff like it in the future!

----------------

okay, this was a bunch of fun, i always like the excuse to read back through old fics! if @stardustloki, or @amberskyyking want to do this, or anyone else who thinks this looks fun, then here you go!

[saltyfilmmajor]

tell us about how you ship lane and ethan, cause how i see is lane is very obsessed with him and thats of course the romantic hate vibes. in my mind is basically the same dinamic as lego batman and lego joker, but i wanna know your take

So I’ve been really sitting on this question for most of the day because I have a lot to say about this.

There’s more under the cut, but the short answer is I ship them together mostly because how I view them as Narrative Foils who are both fixated/obsessed with each other (for different but equally interesting reasons). But also, it’s not outright hate they harbor (at least not in Rogue Nation, in Fallout that is more accurate), Ethan understands Lane’s motivations even if he despises the man’s actions, and Lane is very much interested in Ethan’s potential as an anarchist/terrorist.

I think it’s interesting you cite Lego Batman and Joker’s dynamic as the frame of reference for Your interpretation of Lane x Ethan, and that’s totally valid. I’ve not seen lego batman but what I understand is that that dynamic is romantically coded but played more cartoonishly, which is how I initially viewed Lane x Ethan.

You can absolutely play to the concept comedically, I think there is something inherently funny in shipping a hero with a villain (your mileage may vary.) But for me what draws me to actually writing fic is the angst potential of loving or lusting after someone who is ideologically opposed to you. I think, and reasonable people are free to disagree with my opinion, that Ethan as a character harbors dark thoughts and feelings, but for several reasons lets them go. 1) He understands that there are consequence in giving into his impulsive anger (see: MI3 when he dangles Owen Davian from a fucking plane, which directly results in his own wife getting kidnapped) The idea that Ethan could never turn is something that floats around in the fandom, and while it’s true to say Ethan would never turn (it’s just something imbued into his character by now) I think we don’t explore the “why” of that enough. Ethan has a support system, where Lane does not.

Ethan’s team, whoever they happen to be in any movie, are central to how Ethan interacts with the world he’s always trying to save. Ethan loses his entire team in the first film and that informs every decision he makes for the rest of his life. He wants out of the IMF, but he keeps getting pulled back in. He loses his team, his wife, his protégé and ultimately his ability to live a normal civilian life. But Luther, and Benji and whoever happens to stay on his team, he cares about them, they are his family. We don’t view his prioritizing of his family as selfish, because that’s what people perceive is a normal thing to do. But that prioritization always comes at the cost of the mission. Rogue Nation and Fallout lean into this heavily. Ethan, if properly provoked, he will do impulsive or selfish things (even if those selfish things also happen to benefit other people). The caveat to that is that his friends are able to pull him back, or at least call him out and warn him from going too far on their behalf.

Also, Ethan has a history of rogue behavior that even if it is in the service of the “greater good”, is the justification that the villains of the last three films ultimately rely on for their own actions. So, while we the audience understand Ethan to be the good guy, in universe this is the exact reason all these spy organizations fear/distrust Ethan.

Comparatively speaking, Ethan is more well-adjusted than Solomon Lane, because despite the things he goes through, he doesn’t let his crisis of faith ever deter him from doing what he thinks is right. In contrast, Lane lets his anger drive him into letting the world burn. His anger is destructive, but it serves his purpose of enacting revenge. But he is much more detached emotionally, and there are multiple ways to interpret Lane as a character, but I see him as someone who doesn’t want to admit he may have emotions. Which is understandable as again, he was also a former field agent. The reason he keeps Ilsa around is that he sees potential in her, potential to see the world as he sees it. Vinter speaks at Ethan, asking aloud: “What does he see in you, I wonder?”.  While Vinter may not see what Lane is looking for in Ethan, the fact that Lane doesn’t order his outright death is telling, at least to Vinter. (Although that is not enough to stop Vinter from trying regardless.)

There are parts of the script that where cut out of the final film that makes this dynamic more obvious, rather than the subtext it is in the narrative. And while, when analyzing their dynamic I can only rely on what makes it into the final product, the fact that Lane wants to “corrupt/torture/seduce” Ethan has always been intended. However one chooses to read that is up to the viewer, especially because this interpretation of their dynamic relies on subtext.

I think, personally, it’s interesting to explore this dynamic as basically like this: Lane: Aren’t you tired of Being Nice, don’t you just want to go apeshit?

Ethan:

it's about the ideological conflict, and the begrudging understanding. Lane and Ethan function as narrative foils for each other, where they could have turned out as each other, had circumstances been different. “The Same thing that’s wrong with me is wrong with you (Derogatory)”

So that’s my thoughts.

[fanonplussed]

thanks @lu-sn for tagging me!

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason.

--

first fic ever published: Settling Down, Settling In

this was Beka Cooper post-canon fic from 2011 and also the only het fic i ever wrote lollll though i then proceeded to publish nothing else for 8 years, i do still have a lot of fondness for this fic, and for the many, many het YA fantasy novels that have shaped the way i read and write

last fic published: a patient kind of guy

actually i lied, there's het in this fic too...specifically comphet, and the explorations thereof (it's a Be My Favorite fic, specifically a Pisaeng character study, nuff said). actually really proud of this one cause i like to think this fic showcases how far i've come in terms of being able to write angst, smut, humour, longing, and complex themes all in one 6k word fic

any fic i wrote for a ship only once: Five Times Wen Qing Writes to Jiang Yanli

huh, turns out i write quite a lot of ships only once, but i'm particularly proud of this femslash fic, firstly because in general there's not enough femslash in the world, and secondly because the MDZS ladies in specific deserved better!! also there's an incredible podfic recorded by some incredible people for it and listening to that was the COOLEST FREAKING THING

favorite fic for ship with most works: Thirty Years of (Someone Else's) Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

you know what, i loved this ship SO FUCKING MUCH and this was hands down the most joyful cracktastic fic i've ever written and it's all about THE MAGIC OF FRIENDSHIP and yeah, if i could pick one work to remember of everything i wrote for these boys, it would be this one. sigh.

fic i wish more people read: Dad Joke

speaking of joyful cracktastic fics about the magic of friendship lolllll Macau and Chay have so much potential to be INCREDIBLE together as romantic/platonic co-conspirators and i didn't even realise until i finished writing this fic--this legitimately started out with me wanting to have Macau yell "it's a dad joke" about calling Pete 'dad' and then i woke up from my 24 hour writing fugue state with new, inconvenient macauchay feels lol guess the joke is on me (also i sometimes read this fic again and still laugh at my own jokes and i'm v proud of that)

fic i agonized over the most: Starving, Faithful

okay i'm sure i agonised over The Long Road Across The Wilderness - 荒尘渡 too (42k words of yi city boys on a big bang deadline ><) but FUCKING HELL the sheer amount of SCREAMING i did about the vegaspete post-credits scene for Starving Faithful man, and how it didn't ALIGN THEMATICALLY with how i'd conceptualised vegaspete in chapters 1 through 4 with the HUNGER and the OWNERSHIP and i rewrote that ending scene SO many times (with very patient, intelligent handholding from my incredible beta) and in the end just kinda went fuck it and gave up lol tbh i still have no idea if it's as resonant or consistent as i wanted it to be but overall i think i did pretty okay with that fic anyway

fic that sprang fully formed from my mind: Seven Years

444 words of Xue Yang character study that just flowed out in like 10 minutes inspired by this piece of fanart, one of the coolest collab and writing experiences i've had because i'm a plotter so that's basically never happened to me before and has never happened to me again lol (maybe i should actively look for fanart i like to see if inspiration will strike again hmm...)

work i am proud of: all of them. genuinely. i worked hard on every single one of those fics and at least one person has enjoyed reading each one of those fics, and i dunno i just think that's really, really cool. fandom is really pretty special <3<3<3

--

tagging @ghost--houses and @giraffeter

[andro-dino]

Hey! It’s CureDeity (sorry tumblr makes me ask from my main). I am here, in your inbox today, to rattle my little empty coin can and ask you to list some of your favorite beyblade fanfics! I’m going around asking a lot of people this, so feel free to ignore it if you want, but I thought this might be a good way for people to shout out some of the fanfic they really enjoy! Btw, if you can, I thought it would be helpful to list which site this fic was on so others could find it easier if they wanted to. Also, if you’ve written any fic (or have fic ideas, as we all know, imagining the same scene over and over again is the bread and butter of a writer), please also take this chance to have a massive, amazing ego and tell us which of your fics you're most proud of/is your favorite/etc.

WOOO LETS GO

I don’t read a ton of fics, mostly because I just don’t like reading as a whole and usually don’t have the energy for it, so I apologize if I skip over anyone

All of these are going to be on ao3 because I’ll die before I seriously venture into the wastelands (wattpad and ffnet)

So, starting with my own fics, tbh I tend to hate most of them immediately after I post them, but the two I’m most proud of still are A Confrontation and Hyoma’s Experience in Perpetual Loneliness. Both focus on characters with a lot of angst potential and I still really like how they came out. Confrontation made me genuinely upset while writing it so I was pretty dang confident in it, while Perpetual Loneliness explored a more bittersweet kind of feeling and the complexities of Hyoma’s attachment issues and ways of coping with loneliness in his life that i really like to develop. Also a shameless excuse to write soft domestic kyohyotsu, which is always a plus.

As for you deity, obviously you have a lot of bangers and carry the fanfic side of this fandom on your back, but a couple of my personal favorites from you are the one you made for me with a title too long for me to want to type it out and Ursa Minor. I love the gift fic for the super interesting story, wonderful interactions between starbreaker, emotional scenes that made me sob, and investment I felt in Faust and Zeo’s relationship, AND OBVS YOURE A FUCKING MADLAD FOR WRITING ME A 27K FIC WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU (I still have fanart I need to make of that btw I will get to it eventually I prommy). And Ursa Minor was one that I read early on getting into the fandom and it’s just really gentle and sweet and I liked it a lot. Obviously all your fics are bangers but those are my personal favs.

@lady-lazagna has so many bangers too it’s also hard to choose just a few. The first one that came to mind for me was her mayblade collection, which is just full of absolute bangers all the way through, and then I also remembered Warm Welcome Home because it was cute and made me laugh and I am indeed a sucker for tsujack content

OBVIOUSLY I can’t go without mentioning @heybeyby ‘s fdwdbg because as soon as shekel pitched the idea to me we talked about it for genuinely like 6 hours straight. Every time she brings up a new idea for it I start spinning around at rapid speeds and I am so excited to see how it takes the story in the future because it is gonna be so goddamn good.

One of my favorite fics ever of all time without a doubt is Irisviel101’s Chrysanthemum , which is probably obvious coming from me because it’s a takanosuke and sakyo centric fic, BUT IT IS SO GODDAMN GOOD AND CUTE AND FUNNY AND IT MAKES MY HEART EXPLODE EVERY TIME I READ IT AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH GOD ITS SO GOOD PLS READ IT IF YOU HAVENT

I also can’t go without mentioning Gesso by Arcylic because I absolutely adore how they wrote jack and Zeo together and it’s what made me absolutely fall in love with their friendship dynamic, and what originally inspired me to write Zeo’s Experience in Team Starbreaker

This one. This one goes without saying anything. I just totally adore it and I love the dynamics explored between the characters here.

There’s probably definitely some I’m forgetting here but these are a good couple I wanted to highlight

BUT ALSO.

I FORGOT ABOUT THIS UNTIL RECENTLY. I CANNOT REMEMBER WHEN THIS KYOYA/TSUBASA FIC WAS POSTED BUT I READ IT AGES AGO AND I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT BUT I CANNOT FIND IT NOW. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO POSTED IT OR WHAT IT WAS CALLED AND ALL I HAVE OF IT IS THIS SCREENSHOT

I fucking loved this fic and I have no idea what happened to it

[mdhwrites]

Do you think the writers made Amity "perfect" by accident? Not perfect but decent enough, I was thinking maybe that's why they didn't put much focus on Willow and Gus because they don't know how to? Or were just unaware of the fandom's interest in these characters and thought we don't care

They put more focus on Hunter tho, but he's all over the place.

Maybe it's because Amity was written with a end goal/end result in mind, to be paired with Luz so they knew how to start her characterisation and arc? I guess (also why she gets nothing after that's done)

With Gus and Willow it's like they were written to be nothing besides background characters, first intent before fandom pressure

Hunter is basically Amity if she had like, more end goals or more arcs in mind but you don't know which one to chose, (looks like they tried to write them all in). It's like the opposite of Willow and Gus but with the same result, not knowing what to do with them.

Somehow she's solid enough to still attract attention even by doing trivial stuff. Still indulging even if it's just her being clumsy or rambling about a student council. It's a charisma that I don't see in others characters (except Lilith and Boscha but that's a personal thing for me not general)

It took me a couple reads to understand what you meant by perfect to realize you meant as far as narrative potential goes and in that regard...

She's not perfect. She goes well with the high concept fantasy idea as someone who has directly profited from Belos and conforms to his system and the school ideas because... Obvious reasons quite frankly but one half of this is never acknowledged. Not only that but she doesn't fit well with wacky hi-jinks because she'd always need a purpose behind her actions (at least in Season 1). She's effectively too logical so forcing her into a situation can be awkward.

As for if it were intentional, I don't entirely think so. Dana had an interview recently that illuminated how much the romantic interests in the show for Luz and Eda were explicitly for the sake of being romantic interests. That one was because they wanted an old flame for Eda and the other was so they could quickly get a casual, gay relationship in before anyone could stop them. That's me closely quoting the brief interview.

And Amity's potential, and then waste of it, reflects the role of being made to allow for a fast, LGBT relationship. So much of her angst and 'problems' are things that contrast with Luz in a way that, if you don't actually care about them, can be bulldozed through with enough meaning to give a plus one to their relationship each time more of Amity is fixed. They are also all setup in ways that fit well to Luz's talents or by the basic premise of 'friendship and kindness are good'.

This is also why so much of it is discarded and sheered off so quickly. Why things like Willow are pushed away so quickly for the sake of the romance because while S1 was a bit more subtle about it, there's still the line in S2 of "I do stupid things around you." Which... Would ring more true if she felt like she did illogical things before Looking Glass but she really doesn't. Maybe a touch distracted but there's always a rhyme and a reason behind what she did until that episode.

In that sense, Lumity could be said to be rushed actually. Not that I think it is but there's a case to be had that realistically, if we were to treat Amity as a more full character, it should have taken longer. There should have been more in the way. Amity 'acting silly' shouldn't have been the only fear she had about them getting together.

Which I'm going to genuinely plug Rich Witch here. A large part of why Rich Witch was made was that while I explore a LOT of Amity's potential in The Power of Love, my story started between seasons, it still started with them only one step away from getting together. Worries like what being friends with Luz meant, what ditching her friends meant to her parents, and somewhat to them, etc. like that were harder to cover in that story.

So I wanted a clean slate. If Amity actually had a reason to be against Luz, what does it take to get them together? How bad of a friend was Amity before Luz came around? How much of this was self inflicted and how much of it was outside forces? And how did the process of getting close go if the story were more focused on the romance and Amity?

Those were essentially the fundamental questions that led to me making Rich Witch which I do wish to continue someday. Just... Well, Amazon did its own platform dirty and made failure pretty much the fate of all but the already wealthy and influential and that has done bad things to me about it. *sigh*

Sorry I mostly focused on the beginning of the ask btw. Hunter got more attention because he's plot relevant, Gus and Willow lost attention because quite frankly they're just there to help facilitate Hexide things and thus Amity so once Amity was a bigger deal, they were shoved to the side (until then used to help Hunter's character). And Amity is pretty, nice and has a very good VA so her having a lot of charisma with the show, which will pause for ten seconds to just spend time making her look good (when she picks up random abomination goo in Special 2) so it's not surprising she has more charisma than other characters. She was the favorite for a reason and few will abandon their favorites quickly.

[auralina33]

Opal and Mari for the ask game? Mayhap?

OPAL VALLE (acesophiewalten's AU Mrs. Afton- They're allowed to ask this because we've discussed these characters in DMs!)

First impression: Stoic mom... She's funky. I like her design (Her design proceeded to stick in my head the way it was forever even though you changed it)

Impression now: She's still kind of stoic to me but I also see now that she's more just calm, composed, and autistic. I don't think I'd say I was expecting her to be uncaring, but how loving and affectionate she is was a nice surprise and warms my heart... I'd trust her with my life.

Favorite moment: Write her confronting William. Do it. I require it. /j but what you've implied about that lives in my head rent-free. Asides from that, her trying to protect Mari so badly in our first AU still makes me sob.

Idea for a story: Honestly if I were to write her, it'd be something with either Mari or my William... Probably Mari, my William's character is wobbly. And also I've pretty much never written Mari and that's a crime. Hurt-comfort between them real perhaps...

Unpopular opinion: I don't know what the popular opinion on her is so unpopular opinion, she's my mom, here I can show you the adoption pape-

Favorite relationship: Actually, I LOVE her relationship with your Elizabeth... I don't even remember many of the specifics, but I remember a feeling of both comfort and sadness when I heard you talking about them. Also biased one, but her relationship with Mari is so sweet to me too.

Favorite headcanon: Opal with a prosthetic still lives in my head sometimes... Otherwise, Opal also having ADHD and being aspec makes me insane.

THE MARIONETTE (I'm gonna take it like you meant the canon character because. Mari's mine I made him up at this point)

First impression: I LOVE THIS DESIGN SO MUCH. And you're telling me this character is actually secretly super important and has some kind of ghost powers? yoooooooOOOOOOOO (<- Sound of 11 year old Aura experiencing the mix between an special interest and an hyperfixation for the first time)

Impression now: Everyone is wrong about this character except for me (I am completely detached from reality and I do not want to acknowledge it). The Puppet has such an interesting characterization there is DEPTH there is INTRIGUE there is THE POTENTIAL FOR ANGST guys please come back guys gu

Favorite moment: "The others are under my protection." is a line that still makes me batshit insane. It literally confirmed the headcanon I'd had for this character for YEARS prior.

Idea for a story: Mari being mentally ill as a character exploration. I'm leaving it at that because I don't feel like slapping TWs on this post. More complicated one that may get outdated, but sometimes I still think about that fic I wanted to write centered around Mari finding out that William's keeping him and the other Toys from telling Henry what's going on.

Unpopular opinion: Please guys... Please spare some non-Charlie and non-CC Puppets again... I know that's been blasted by canon but I loved it so much... PLEASE. SammyPuppet or Puppet kid who wasn't connected to William or Henry gang rise up. Also for a less niche opinion, I'm completely convinced that the Puppet's wracked with immense amounts of Survivor's Guilt by FFPS and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Favorite relationship: Puppet and Henry and Puppet and William as actual developed dynamics make me insane. Also despite the above statement, I'm not immune to propaganda and Puppet and Charlie in AUs where the Puppet itself is sentient can hit so well sometimes.

Favorite headcanon: The Puppet's based off or connected to the Fredbear's animatronics but is formally a Toy animatronic.

Can you tell I never moved on from the 2010s FNAF fandom

[fangirlmeena]

Seems fun! I hope I'm doing this right- alright--

1) I've always wanted to read SB fanfics but I think I got here through Solar Lunacy comics, I LOVE the jacket design for Y/N and later discover it was from a fanfic and the rest are history!

2) The Y/Ns. THEY ARE SO FUN TO THINK ABOUT!! For most of the fanfics Sun and Moon stays the same, so I'll definitely say it is the Y/Ns that gets me hooked!

3) I haven't been here for long, probably a week for 2!

4) no lol- I don't have time, don't do well with horror and I don't think I can handle such a glitchy game like SB... if I would to play it is to explore the map!

5) acorss the Y/N verse fanarts! Cause these little guys are so fun to think about! And maybe SB Freddy and Gregory fanarts too?

6) found family + slow burn + friends to lovers + undercover mystery but mainly the first 3... you can see why I like SL now right?

7) mm I like the au where Sun and Moon are gods because it makes the most sense to me! And the one where Sun is passive aggressive and Y/N is a wet cat, it has the most angst potential! AND sun is not a sunshine anymore >=D

8) Not any OCs regarding SB! And currently no favorite OC, for Y/N aaa probably cooper au one!

9) scary. Unsettling. But I mean hey that's what the internet is for- TRANSFORM THESE JESTERS TO SILLIES

10) You mean the SB fandom? Glamrock Freddy. Period. Ok and maybe also Gregory and Cassie but like it's dad freddy--

11) Sun! Sometime moon IS better than sun depends on the fic BUT in reality there ain't no way I'm turning off that light, plus I'm a sucker for friends to lover sooo

12) The canon eclipse is cool! They cute! While for fan-canon eclipse sometime it feels like an extra? Like they are here cause the fanfic is about sun and moon but sometime for me it doesn't make sense for me? Also HOW DO YOU DID YOU GROW TALLER AND GROW 2 EXTRA ARMS???-- But yeah eclipse are cool, definitely looks scarier and yeah they cool!

13) They do their job as a daycare attendant well so it's good! Though I kinda wish for more argument between Sun and the kids cause I like seeing how they resolve the fights!

14) ADORABLE I love seeing pre-glitched moon cause they are so mysterious and sweet!!

15) I see them are separate beings which- probably does bad on my case when they get together with Y/N and I'm just emotionally conflicted BUT ANYWAY IT DOESN'T MATTER-- it doesn't matter how you see DCA as long as you don't push your idea onto other people! You enjoy your DCA fics however you sees it!

16) PRE GLITCH MOON-- also Gregory because I see alot of sassy Gregory with Y/N comics and they are very funny but I haven't read it yet TAT

17) mmm extra characters?? That sounds bad but like I think SL the best because it is filled with characters I've already know (glamrock crew) and when characters are introduced there ain't alot of them nor too many informations about them???? Does that make sense? I think I've just made my case wrong UMM--

18) GREGORY AND Y/N INTERACTION. IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY I SWEAR--

19) Probably?? I like kids and am silly most of the time, me and sun can probably get along through silliness. While me and moon will take a WHILE to get along, I don't understand technology but all I know is this man is trying to kill me in the most painful way possible so yeah, unless I've found a cure to the glitch I ain't coming close.

20) THIS TOOK ME WAYYYY TO LONG I'VE GOT TO GO LIKE 15 MINS AGO WIFBEJ BYE--

alright dca fandom, here's some questions bc i'm curious. the funky jesters make our brains go brr, but why? treat it as an ask game or answer in the tags if you feel like it! :)

how did you get here?

why these characters in particular? what was the hook for you?

how long have you been here?

have you actually played fnaf sb?

if you make content, what's your favorite piece you've contributed?

what's your favorite sort of art or fic? what genre/flavor/style?

what's your favorite au?

do you have any ocs, or have any ocs you're fond of?

what do you think of the dca's canon appearance? Scary? Cute? Something else?

what keeps you in this fandom despite the very small amount of canon content the dca had?

be honest: if you had to pick only one, sun or moon?

thoughts on eclipse?

thoughts on pre-glitch sun?

thoughts on pre-glitch moon?

do you interpret sun and moon as two sides of the same person, or truly two separate beings in one body? does it matter?

what's something in the fandom you'd like to see more of?

what's something in the fandom you'd like to see less of?

anything you're looking forward to?

do you think you'd actually get along with the dca if you met them irl?

free space! talk about whatever's on your mind!

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

---

you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia

[fireemblems24]

Ao3 Ship Thoughts

To sate my desire to read Three Houses fan fiction and jump in on the shipping comments that have upticked recently, I decided to see what ships were the most popular on Ao3.

Some of it's exactly what I expected, and one in particular is just . . . what, why?

Ao3 is probably the closest you'll get to truly determining which ships are the most popular, or at least have the highest number of passionate fans. So I was curious to see who the top ships were. Here's the ones listed, in order:

Sylvain/Felix

Dimitri/Byleth

Edelgard/Byleth

Ferdinand/Hubert

Claude/Byleth

Dimitri/Felix

Dimitri/Claude

Felix/Annette

Caspar/Linhardt

Hilda/Marrianne

If I exclude the Byleth ships, Dimitri/Dedue, Byleth/Seteth, and Ingrid/Sylvain take up the three missing spots.

Byleth's Ships

I'm shocked. Really, truly shocked that Byleth/Lord is popular. Never wouldn't guessed. I am, of course, being sarcastic. If someone asked me to list who I think would show up in the top 10 most popular ships, the first three I'd list would be Byleth/Lord.

What I find more interesting is that Byleth/Seteth is the fourth option for Byleth. AO3 writers, I officially bow to your taste. It pleases me quite a bit that, if you're not going with one of the main lords, you all want Seteth. This I can agree with.

As for the Byleth/Lord ships, I feel kind of mixed on them. Every lord interacts with characters who have more depth than Byleth, but I still get the appeal. I'm going to deep dive into all of the lords relationships with Byleth later, but here's a quick summary.

Edelgard/Byleth is shoved down your throat so hard it's nearly impossible to ship Edelgard with someone else and even shortchanges her potential to have deep, non-romantic relationships because Edelgard puts Byleth on a pedestal that no one else can reach by her own dialogue.

Byleth's character arc works well alongside Dimitri's. While the relationship is pushed and fanservice-y scenes exist, the game leaves enough breathing room to see Byleth as a mentor/therapist/teacher figure, and Dimitri has no shortage of deep, meaningful relationships with others should you not want to do the whole self-insert thing. It's a good balance.

Claude and Byleth are the opposite of Edelgard and Byleth. They read almost more like friends than lovers. It's a breath of fresh air, honestly. Claude/Byleth seems like the healthiest possible romance for Byleth/lord because the lord in question here doesn't seem as dependent. That said, it lacks lacks romance and shipping fuel. I may complain about fanservice, but the Byleth/Claude dynamic does show why scenes of holding hands in the rain and teasing about badly drawn images might actually come in handy.

Edelgard's Ships

I'm not surprised, at all, that Edelgard has no popular ships outside of Byleth. Dialogue consistently shortchanges Edelgard's relationships with others by having her verbally, repeatedly put Byleth into a special "other" that no one else can reach for her.

Though, I guess I'm a bit surprised at the extreme lack of Edelgard/Hubert. I feel these two have a lot of shipping fuel and their supports left things unresolved. I've come across the sentiment in fandom many times that ship where things are tied off nicely with a bow leave less to explore and aren't as interesting, so I am bummed out no one seems interested in fleshing out Hubert/Edelgard more.

The outlook for Edelgard fanfic and me seems pretty limited. I don't like Edelgard/Byleth for various reasons beyond this scope of this post. I was kind of hoping there were some Edelgard/Hubert or Edelgard/Dorothea character study stuff that could help me get past how much Byleth gets in the way of Edelgard's character growth, but it seems fanfic writers only want to write about her and Byleth, which is a bummer.

On that note, I'm also surprised but also glad that Dimitri/Edelgard isn't a big thing. I thought it might be because tragedy of childhood friends turned enemies by events out of their control is popular. These two seem wildly incompatible though, so I'm glad people seem to agree.

Claude's Ships

Ok. Claude/Byleth. Expected. I'm feel positively towards the ship since they seem mostly good for each other even if it's not getting my heart all fluttering.

I'm surprised there's no Claude/Petra or Claude/Hilda. Those two are my personal favorites for him. I would've given Claude/Petra the edge given how they can uniquely relate to each other, but Hilda's scene in CF really gave Petra a run for her money. Even more so that Petra and Claude have obligations to two different nations and Hilda has no such complication.

But whattttt???? Claude/Dimitri? It's in the top 10?? More people ship Dimitri with Claude than Dedue?? I thought lord/lord might be popular, but I honestly thought Dimitri/Edelgard would take it, not Claude/Dimitri. They never really talk. So I'm a bit confused about this one. Though, intrigued by the idea.

Can I take a wild guess this partly stems from Claude having no real other viable M/M ships outside of M!Byleth and fics that plays up the chapter I'm about to play in AM (Dimitri saving Claude) or "what ifs" VW routes where Dimitri doesn't . . . you know.

I am really curious about this dynamic though. Because I like Claude - a lot. He's a character I want to get attached to. From experience, the fastest way for me to like a character is to give them a significant relationship I enjoy with a character I already love and the new character gets absorbed by proxy. So, fans, please, tell me more about this Dimitri/Claude. I am curious.

Dimitri's Ships

I am as unsurprised by Dimitri's being one of the biggest repeat offenders on here as I am by Edelgard being Byleth or bust. If Edelgard is written to fanservice the player by making the self-insert her one and only, Dimitri is fanservicing the player by being a shipping magnet. The writers knew what they were doing and who they were trying to appeal to with these two characters.

Dimitri/Byleth is a given. The game plays up the romance angle, but it's not at the expense of Dimitri's other relationships.

What I'm more interested in, though, is Felix/Dimitri. Between angsty CF stories, post-AM slow-burns, or fleshing out missing scenes from their shared childhood, there's just a lot to work with and a rich context to use their relationship - spun romantically - to explore each character. Felix and Dimitri's relationship is layered, complicated, heart breaking, and potentially healing. The fact they're two incredibly attractive guys doesn't hurt its popularity either, I'm sure. I'm not surprised it ranked that highly.

Claude/Dimitri surprises me. If two lords were going to get on this list together, I would've put bets on Edelgard/Dimitri. Since Claude and Dimitri's relationship is fairly unexplored, I'm really interested to see more about what exactly this is about. Don't get me wrong. I figured people would pair two main characters who are that good looking together, I just didn't think it would rank that high.

I am, slightly sad, that Dimitri/Dedue isn't a bit higher, but happy it seems to have some steam. I get it though. Dedue's not as flashy as some of the others on the shipping list and their relationship is so full of fluff by their A support it lacks the angst Felix/Dimitri and Dimitri/Byleth can draw out nor is as much of a play around with "what ifs" as Claude/Dimitri is.

Non-Lords/Main Characters Ships:

This list, more than anything else, shows AO3's penchant for writing M/M and F/F works for better or worse. Whether this phenomena stems from lack of representation, fetishizing by the fanbase, deeply ingrained gender roles making fictional M/F ships either less appealing to many fanfic writers, or M/F romances often getting assumed leading to less substantial writing compared to friendships - I don't know. Probably all of it.

There are a few surprises here for me. Felix/Sylvain is that popular? I figured they'd make the top 10, but #1 is surprising. Though, looking through the first page of the tag, it's true Felix/Sylvain have fics just for them, but it also seems like a common pairing in Dimitri/Byleth and Dimitri/Claude fics. It's the same story with Caspar/Linhardt, who I honestly didn't expect to see. They had a fair number of their own fics, but it seems many CF fics put them together rather than focus solely on them. Felix/Annette also balances being the main focus and an adjunct pairing. Marianne/Hilda seemed to have less fics where they took center stage and more they were one of many ships listed.

Ferdinand/Hubert having a lot of fics isn't surprising. I don't really care too much for it personally, but I can see the appeal of it.

I'm surprised Catherin/Shamir is nowhere in sight. Likewise, Rhea is absolutely nowhere. Kind of sad by the lack of adult characters in general. Especially Rhea. I think it's a pretty big sign of how the writing's treated her that such an important character is totally absent in this list.

Not surprised at all to see Felix also get so many ships. He, like Dimitri, seems designed on purpose to ship with many characters. I do really wish Dorothea and Seteth would get more attention though.

What do you guys think? Anything that surprised you? How do you feel about any of these ships and there popularity or lack thereof? Are there characters/pairings you wish got more attention? Any popular ships you despise (spill that tea)?

[apollo41writes]

Goodnight prompt 47/∞

Fandom: Detroit: Become Human Ship: RK900/Gavin Reed AUs/Tropes: Soulmates AU, Forgot first meeting Prompt: What happens if your soulmate is deaf and can't hear your first words? Do you even have a soulmark?

Extra details: I literally had this idea at 4 in the morning, but I have been wondering for hours about what would happen in a universe where soulmates have soulmarks with the first words you soulmate tells you.

Like, would they have soulmarks of the first words someone sign at them instead? Or would they feel pressured by society to learn at least a few words to say when they meet someone for the first time so that they recognize their soulmates by their soulmates mark alone?

It's one of those interesting concepts that I would very much like to see explored.

Anyway, back to the actual prompt. So, the one detail I wanted for the soulmarks in this AU is that not only you have a soulmark with the first words your soulmates tells you, but the words are kind of like a very old and faded tattoo until you actually hear them, and then they turn vibrant (sometimes even colorful).

I just like the idea that RK900 was activated as soon as Markus does his big speech at the end of the good endings, and tries to destroy the deviants leaders. But despite him being stronger than all of the other, he's overwhelmed just because he's one against multiple androids at the same time.

So, right before they make him a deviant as well, he gets injuries so bad that his hearing processor or whatever doesn't work anymore. And fixing it is kind of hard, like, maybe since he's a prototype that part need to be made specifically for him.

But the newly deviant RK900 doesn't really mind being deaf. He can comunicate with people just fine even without being able to hear them.

Which is also how RK900 doesn't realize when he first meets Gavin. Maybe Connor brings RK900 to work with him one day just so that he can see how working at the precinct looks like because RK900 isn't sure just yet what he wants to do now that he's free to choose.

And Gavin, thinking RK900 is Connor, pushes him when walking by, not even really paying attention or saying anything since he's rushing to go on a call or something.

Here is where I kind of stopped with this idea. Because maybe RK900 mumbles automatically "I'm sorry" or maybe even an insult. And Gavin is too focused on his own shit (or maybe RK900 whispers it too quietly) that he doesn't even actually hear them in an active way.

But once he gets back home and undresses to go into the shower, he sees his soulmark in all kind of shade of blues and grey and OH FUCK, he met his soulmate... And he doesn't even remember who the fuck said the words.

Like I said, this is kind of where I stopped because there are so many options of things that could happen! I haven't even decided if RK900 has words or not, if maybe they appear when he becomes deviant or if they still stay muted even after Gavin says them to him because he knows Gavin said them (he can reads his lips), but he hasn't actually heard them. Or maybe he doesn't have a mark at all and the two of them don't know that they are soulmates but still fall in love with each other, and there is this whole thing with RK900 thinking that sooner or later Gavin will find his soulmate and leave him (so maybe they even have this "friend with benefits" deal at first, or something).

Just, one of those ideas with the potential for lots of angst, drama and pining, which is always my favorite combo, especially if there is a nice happy ending at the end of it.

(Also, the relationship could be just a side of the coin. Maybe RK900 at first works at the precinct because it feels like the obvious decision to make. But he realizes that he's not truly happy and decides to quit and he tries a bunch of different jobs to figure out what he prefers to do. What can I say, I like when characters need to find themselves.)