#I hate love triangles in pre-established ships

[samnotsammy12]

Starting season 4!

I know that this is the season where they bring Nicole back but please tell me they don’t even hint at making a love triangle because I don’t think I could handle that

[topperscumslut]

my thoughts on fivela

!TUA S4 spoilers!

i have mixed feelings about fivela.

it seems like nearly EVERYONE hates it, besides a few people who absolutely love it, and ig im just kind of in between

i don’t think five and lila should have ever happened in the first place. i think it was poor writing mainly if not solely included for shock value, and that it was unnecessary and added nothing to the main plot, besides leaving diego, lila, and five all to die unhappy with unresolved feelings, which is it’s own issue. but, since it did happen, getting to see them together i actually thought it was kinda cute and i kinda… don’t hate it? like i wish the writers had never messed with the diego and lila pairing in the first place by introducing the love triangle with five since i love diego and lila together, but i blame the writers and not the characters. i don’t think the storyline should’ve ever been written, but the characters did the best they could in the situation they were put in. i mean, they were trapped alone together for nearly seven years, it would be almost impossible to not fall in love in this situation (even if it is somewhat artificial and unhealthy). especially since this is five’s first real relationship, at now 70 years old. it’s kinda one of those tragic ships that i don’t actually ship it/like them together in reality cuz i know it’s not healthy but i like it in theory and get really emotional over it ig. again, i still don’t think this storyline should have been introduced in the first place, but i think since it was essentially inevitable/non-negotiable (steve blackman i just wanna talk), it was as well executed as it probably could be and the actors really made the best out of a shitty situation.

let’s be honest, these characters aren’t perfect. that’s why we love them. all of the brellies (and lila) are messy, flawed, chaotic, selfish, morally gray, and often cross the line between hero and villain. that’s what makes them feel so real. they’re a hot mess, but at the end of the day, they all (arguably) have good hearts. i was actually glad to see more of the unhealthily lovesick, toxic, possessive side of five that’s been hinted at and alluded to since the very beginning in reminiscences of dolores. a lot of people have been saying everything five did this season, especially in relation to lila, was completely out of character for him, which i do somewhat agree with, but not fully. this man literally fell in love with a MANNEQUIN while trapped in the apocalypse, now he’s trapped with a real human woman who he already respects and admires as a person. personally, i think five and lila should’ve gotten stuck in the subway for a MUCH shorter period of time and never had any romantic subplot, but considering that’s not what happened and they were trapped for six YEARS, what else would you expect to happen? i’ve also seen a LOT of people saying five would NEVER choose a love interest over his siblings, who he’s done everything for, and um, are y’all forgetting in s1 when five literally pulled a gun on luther for threatening dolores (A MANNEQUIN)? “five would never give up on his family to live a life with lila!” what about when five was trapped in the apocalypse (pre-commission) and essentially gave up and resigned himself to a life alone with dolores? five is canonically ride or die for his lady, whoever that may be, even to the extent that it’s unhealthy and/or that he may put his family on the back burner for his lover. like, this has BEEN established. it may not be a GOOD thing about his character, but it is a true thing.

also, im not really certain i would consider what lila did cheating in the first place. at this point, lila and five had been trapped together for YEARS and thought they were stuck with only each other for the rest of their lives and would never find their way back to their families, so they decided to build a life together (not to mention lila already mentioning wanting to take a break to diego before her and five got trapped). i’ve made this comparison before, but i mean, if luther had given up on finding sloane (as he appears to have done) and moved onto someone else (that part, not so much), would THAT be considered cheating since sloane is still technically his wife (even if in another unvierse)? cuz that’s essentially what lila did. of course, my heart was absolutely broken for diego this season. after all, even tho it had been years for lila and five, it had only been a few hours for him. that’s a horrible situation for diego to be in, but i don’t think lila and five were 100% in the wrong and i mainly blame the writers circumstances.

this is all to say, imho, the few moments we saw of five and lila as a couple were actually kind of cute (in theory) (albeit toxic and codependent) and definitely struck a chord with me, IN UNIVERSE. if we’re just seeing this as fictional characters, im not fully opposed to it. HOWEVER, steve blackman planning to set five up with an adult literally since aidan gallagher was a minor AND going along with the storyline despite protest from the actors is weird as hell, and im glad the fandom is calling him out on it. i’m just glad the actors are still such good friends, even after this season.

[pine-dexter]

FAQ

Hello~ I'm Queenie and this post is just to answer some basics!

How old are you?

I'm over 21!

Who do you write with?

I'm open to writing with anyone, provided they are 21+ as well. No hate to anyone younger, I just feel more comfortable interacting with blogs closer to my age. This also takes care of any smut on this blog, though that will probably be more selective. I will write with multis and OCs as long as we talk beforehand to plot.

I love pre-established relationships too, so please feel free to come into my DMs and ask! Think your muse met mine at some point? Think they were friends/enemies/rivals/pickle ball partners? Hit me up and we can discuss it!

A NOTE FOR BILL RPers: I write Ford as canonically having had a thing with the triangle back in the day, but hating him post canon. That can be as messy and dramatic as we want it to be, but if you come into my ask box with a Bill trying to be shippy, Ford will not reciprocate UNLESS we have discussed it beforehand. Relationships always vary by blog, of course, so there are some exceptions but if we've never spoken OOC, I will always write present day Ford as hating Bill and rebuffing his advances. Now that being said, I WELCOME those asks regardless because they're usually fun to interact with, but I just don't want someone to feel disappointed with an ask they sent because they expected something else.

Do you tag posts?

Yes! And if there's anything you'd like me to tag, let me know! I'm open to whatever. I have a tag dump of my tags to keep things organized here .

Ships?

I am not against ships on the this blog provided they're discussed and there's chemistry! My Ford is pretty fluid and I like to write stuff like that. That said, I'm not interested in writing Stancest on this blog. I have nothing against it (and even DID write it once upon a time) but don't really want to anymore. That being said, I won't tolerate hate on this blog for ANY ship. Let people live their lives. Me not being interested does not equal being cool with people policing how others interact with media.

How active are you?

Ehh? Moderately. I'm an adult with a job and a life so I'm not here all the time, but I'm fairly responsive and will try to keep replies as frequent as possible. Don't be afraid to gently remind me if I owe you something. Just be nice about it!

Will you write with blogs who write your muse?

YES! I love writing with other Fords, because we as writers already have something in common: we love this nerd. Please don't be afraid to approach me for plots with another Ford!

Do you just write canon!Ford?

Nope! In fact, I have an ever evolving verses list here that will keep growing!

All in all, be chill and respectful and we'll get along fine. I'm open to plotting and talking ooc as well so don't be afraid to say hi!

[heavencasteel420]

At this point, I’m inclined to think that the St4ncy ship-tease was written to be (a) maximally flattering to Steve but (b) minimally impactful to Nancy. I suspect that it was included in the first place because love triangles, love them or hate them, drive audience engagement; however, I don’t think Steve and Nancy were ever going to get back together. The ship-teasing is for another reason: making Steve look good.

I say this because I can clearly picture a version of S4 where a St4ncy endgame is a serious possibility, and I might not even totally hate it if the show did right by Jonathan. Here’s what it would look like:

Steve and/or Nancy express some clear interest in each other before Eddie/Robin/Dustin suggested it. Ideally, it would be established that Nancy has been hanging out with Steve and Robin, and that their (especially his) company is a source of joy in her life. At minimum, either Steve needs to be the one to tell Eddie/Robin/Dustin that he still/again has feelings for Nancy, or Nancy needs to actively seek out his company early on in the action of S4. It’s one thing to have a cheerleading section; it’s another if the section seems to have initiated the idea.

Steve and Nancy’s future goals are more aligned. I don’t think this would be super-hard to write. Have Steve explain that he’s working towards a career in a field that matches with his demonstrated skills—teacher or firefighter or (sorry) cop—and have him make some comment about how his dad’s not thrilled but fuck him. Or even have him go, “yeah, I’m staying in Hawkins until Robin graduates, then I’m going to get out, see some of the world, and decide what I’m going to do.” They can bond over looking after the kids but don’t have him mention any babies they might have—that’s just a lot, regardless of Nancy’s feelings about eventually having children. He doesn’t need to be a hard-charging entrepreneur, just show some initiative and not focus so much on procreation.

This kind of relates to the previous point, but there’s less emphasis on Steve developing into a nicer, more accepting character. That’s great for Steve, but Nancy didn’t walk away from their relationship because Steve was mean or prejudiced; it was because they had different approaches to dealing with the past and also she was more attracted to Jonathan. The emphasis should be on how they’re closer to being on the same page re: fighting Vecna. Also, it should be acknowledged that Nancy has changed over the past couple of years since their breakup; she hasn’t been standing still while Steve got his shit together.

The fact that she’s with Jonathan is taken seriously. Steve doesn’t need to go to bat for Jancy—all’s fair in love and war—but he does need to show awareness that it exists (after he starts making cow eyes at her) and display some curiosity about how Nancy feels about that relationship. Nancy, for her part, has to be further along in her maybe-things-won’t-work-out-with-Jonathan journey, or at least let Steve know that she feels conflicted and has to figure things out with Jonathan. When it’s just glances and a pre-battle confession that don’t lead to anything, her existing relationship can be quietly deemphasized, but if it’s serious, that’s a different story.

This is maybe subjective, but I think it would work better if Steve has actually moved on from the Nancy he dated two years before, and now he’s falling in love anew with the person she is now. That’s way more romantic in my book.

Instead, the ship-tease is geared to make Steve look (a) cute and sweet and fun and memeable (like the bulk of the T-websites fandom seems to appreciate) but also (b) a credible wish-fulfillment figure who kicks ass and is attractive to women (like the more Reddit-ish crowd seems to want). To wit:

He can’t be too active in pursuing Nancy or display too much awareness of Jonathan because it makes him look less “wholesome.”

He has to be all about romance and babies because that’s cute while also according him some future status as a husband and father. His career is left tacitly unmentioned, so he could be anything from a stay-at-home dad to a cop—whatever the audience finds most attractive.

The emphasis is on his being a nicer person who cares about children because that’s what the audience loves about him.

He has to have never gotten over Nancy so the audience (most of whom probably have had an unrequited crush or unwanted breakup) can feel a little sorry for him…but not outright pity him, since he’s a badass and a major female character who’s portrayed as intelligent/capable/beautiful at least seems to see him as a viable romantic partner.

In short, he’s trapped by his own popularity, because the writers are going to play it pretty safe with him, lest he lose his appeal. It’s like the Single Female Lawyer episode of Futurama. The Single Female Lawyer can’t get married, because that’s not what people watch for.

Meanwhile, Nancy may think that Steve is a great guy and like how he looks without a shirt, but, between fighting Vecna and and helping Eddie and worrying about her relationship with Jonathan and getting to know Robin and confronting her Barb-related demons and stressing over the Cali Crew’s radio silence, her frisson with him comes off like a pretty minor concern for her. Even if she and Jonathan ultimately break up, I don’t think it’ll be because of Steve—it’ll be because of college.

I could be wrong, of course. Maybe the show will do something stupid and sloppy and wave away Steve’s RV dreams so he and Nancy are more compatible all of a sudden. Maybe it’ll do something stupid and offensive and wave away Nancy’s dreams. Or maybe the world will have changed so much that this is all a moot point. But I feel like the show’s invested enough in Steve’s semi-underdog status (which the audience loves) and Nancy’s ambitiousness (which gives them some non-sexist cred) to keep them apart.

[sqeedledob]

favorite writing trope to see in others' writing?

SLOW BURN. I hate rushed relationships and to some degree pre-established relationships to the point I'm considering having Jaxthena's ship be done on screen instead of off screen.

However Maipress is like a multi book long level of slow burn so I'm like kebhkjbenlk need to balance it WAAAAHHHH

And then MiNeo is also a bit of a slowburn so I'm like...

f u ck

I can't do it for them all!!!!! I just love seeing relationships develop instead of like "they kiss and everything is great, but oh no! they are now separated and one is brainwashed! Gasp! A love triangle!"

[tim-lucy]

You know what I hate? How you get called on for not loving Conrad and Nic if you love Conrad and Billie cause if you loved Conrad and Nic you'd never ship him with Billie and thus the hating and abuse starts on all the how could you ship him with Billie like it's not okay to even though Nic died and you eventually move on but never ever forget the strong love you will always feel for him and Nic that will live on forever but that doesn't mean he can't love again and find love with Billie and the fans love them both!

Not to mention the shared love and pain they have of Nic that lives on in them that connects them in ways that would never connect them with anybody else which to me is epic in itself!

I love both Conrad and Nic, Conrad and Billie just as much as each other <3

I don't go in tags or anything (for this reason), so I actually didn't know people were saying that! But that makes no sense to me. Personally, I never cared for Conrad/Nic since I usually can't get into pre-established relationships, but you can like both??? They're not in competition and this isn't a love triangle. Nic is not coming back to life, unfortunately :(

Do people want Conrad to be alone forever like 😭 Nic would be content knowing her two favorite people found happiness with each other. And I don't think she'd trust anymore more than Billie to love Gigi like her own daughter. Also enemies to best friends to lovers AND forbidden love aspect?? So good!! People who would rather sit there and be mean about it are missing out :(

[snickertoodles]

Megalist of Tropes and Themes to Tag Your Story With

If you’re prone to staring at your tags on AO3 wondering “what the hell do I put here?”, knowing you want to add a tag like “friends to lovers” or “found family” but not remembering all the popular tropes and themes everyone is into, this is for you. I basically spent an entire night on this so I hope it helps.

Notes:

I tried to keep it general and avoid really obscure tags no one would ever use.

This is made for AO3 and thus there’s a lot of fandom or fannish stuff in here. 

I didn’t include any “inappropriate” tags. Feel free to make your own list.

Romance tropes and themes at the bottom. (Not all of them have to be romantic, but if they’re generally associated with romance and there are very few gen fics with that tag, it went there.)

Under cut because I’m probably going to edit this often and I’d like reblogs to be up to date. Please suggest any ideas you have.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse, Contemporary, Comedy/Humor/Parody/Satire, Coming of Age, Crime, Cyberpunk/Steampunk, Drama, Dystopian/Utopia, Fairy Tale, Fantasy/High Fantasy/Low Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Isekai, Family, Friendship, Gothic, Historical Fiction/Alternate History/Period Piece, Horror/Slasher, Mystery/Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Philosophical, Poetry, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural, Surreal, Suspense, Sci-Fi/Science Fiction/Space Opera, Spiritual, Thriller/Psychological Thriller, Tragedy, Urban, Western

Genre (Fandom): Angst/Light Angst, Case Fic, Crack Fic, Crossover/Fusion, Dark Fic, Fix Fic/Fix-It/Deconstruction, Fluff/Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Podfic, Missing Scene/Gap Filler, Self-Insert, Shipping, Sickfic, Songfic, Whump

Length: Drabble, Ficlet, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novella, Novel, Epic, One-Shot/Two-Shot/etc, Series/Duology/Trilogy/Saga/etc, Long, Short

Pairing: M/F - F/M - M/M - F/F - F/F/M - You get the idea. Also [Character] x [Character], Slash, Yaoi/Yuri (if people still use those...)

POV: POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV First Person, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, POV Outsider

Ending: Happy Ending, Sad Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Ambiguous Ending

Diverse Characters: Gay Character/Nonbinary Character/Asian Character/Disabled Character/Autistic Character/Jewish Character/etc.

AU/Alternate Universe: (I do not have the time to list out Coffee Shop AU/High School AU/Canon Divergence/What-If/etc, I assume if you’re writing one then you already know to tag it lol)

Abuse

Adoption

Afterlife

Aftermath

Aged Up

Alcohol

Aliens

Amnesia

Androids

Angels

Animal Transformation

Anti-Hero

Awkwardness

Babysitting

Backstory/Origin Story

Band of Misfits

Best Friends

Betrayal

Blood

Bodyswap

Bodyguard

Bonding

Bounty Hunters

Bromance

Bullying

Canon Compliant

Character Development

Character Study

Childhood Friends

Children

Chosen One

College/University/Higher Education

Corruption

Criminals

Crying

Curses

Cute

Death

Delinquents

Demons

Depression

Destiny/Fate

Disability

Domestic/Curtainfic

Dragons

Dreams/Dreamscape

Drugs

Education

Ensemble Cast

Epilogue

Fanon/Headcanon

Father Figure/Mother Figure

Feelings

Feels

Fights

Flashbacks

Forgiveness

Found Family

Freedom Fighters

Frenemies

Future

Genderswap/Gender Change

Ghosts

Gods

Good Versus Evil

Gore

Grief/Mourning

Growing Up

Healing

Heartwarming

Heroes to Villains/Villains to Heroes

Holidays

Homesickness

Hospital

Hurt

I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping (A very legitimate tag.)

Imprisonment

Injury

Introspection

Illness/Sick Character

Immortality

Isolation

Jealousy

Kidnapping

LGBTQ/LGBTQ Character/LGBTQ Themes

Light-Hearted

Locked In

Loss

Love

Mafia

Magic

Magical Girl(s)

Major Character Death/Minor Character Death

Manipulation

Medieval

Medical

Melancholy

Mental Health Issues

Mentors

Merpeople

Mind Control

Military

Misunderstandings

Modern

Monsters

Morally Grey/Ambiguous Characters

Murder

Mythical Beings & Creatures

Mythology

Neighbors

Next Gen/Next Generation

Nightmares

Original Character/OC/OCs

Orphans/Orphanage

Out of Character/OOC

Parenthood

Past Lives

Peggy Sue

Pen Pals

Pirates

Platonic Relationships/No Romance

Platonic Soulmates

Plot Twists

Politics

Possession

Post-Canon/Pre-Canon/Mid-Canon/Bad Ending/etc.

Prompt Fill/Prompt Fic

Protectiveness

Rags to Riches

Rebels

Recovery

Redemption/Redemption Arc

Regret

Reincarnation/Resurrection/Rebirth

Rejection

Relationships

Religion

Rescue/Rescue Missions

Restaurants

Reunion

Revenge

Revolution

Rivalry

Road Trip

Robots

Roommates

Royalty

Sad

School

Secrets

Secret Identity

Self-Discovery

Self-Harm

Shapeshifting

Siblings

Single Parents

Slow Build

Soft

Spies

Spoilers

Substance Abuse

Suicide

Superheroes

Sweet

Sympathetic Villain

Teamwork

Team as Family

Team Bonding

Team Dynamics

Teenagers

Tension

Time Loop

Time Travel

Training

Trapped

Trauma

Travel

Undercover

Unreliable Narrator

Vampires

Villains

Violence

War

Weapons

Wedding

Wilderness

Witchcraft

Worldbuilding

xxx to Friends (Rivals to Friends/Enemies to Friends/etc.)

Zombies

ROMANCE TROPES

Battle Couple

Blind Date

Breakup

Confessions

Dating

Divorce

Dorks in Love

Drunken Confessions

Established Relationship

Eventual Romance

Falling in Love

Fake Relationship/Fake Dating/Pretend Relationship/Pretend Couple

First Kiss

First Love

Forbidden Love

Heartbreak

Idiots in Love

Long-Distance Relationship

Long-Term Relationship

Love/Hate

Love at First Sight

Love Confessions

Love Potion/Love Spell

Love Triangle

Marriage/Accidental Marriage/Arranged Marriage/Marriage of Convenience

Marriage Proposal

Mutual Pining/Pining

OTP

Pregnancy

Rarepair

Secret Relationship

Sharing a Bed

Slow Burn/Slow Romance

Soulmate/Soulmate AU

Tsundere/all of the other -deres

Unrequited Love/One-Sided Attraction

xxx to Lovers (Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers/etc.)

[lydia-yougowith-stiles]

My Top Ships 2018

I really enjoyed writing this article last year. So here we go again. Check out my favorite ships from movies and TV this year. 

12. The Goldbergs-Erica and Geoff

The Goldbergs has been one of my favorite sitcoms for a couple of years now and I have loved watching the development of Erica and Geoff’s relationship from a simple high school crush, to Erica discovering her feelings, to them now in the current season feeling like an old married couple at times. While they may still have their ups and downs I love how they are always there for one another and they are just adorable. Hope they’re in it for the long run like Geoff assumes they will be!

11. Throne of Glass-Chaol and Celaena 

At the beginning of 2018 I started reading Sarah J. Maas’ fantasy novel Throne of Glass. Instantly I could see the love triangle emerge between the assassin Celaena, the crown prince Dorian and the head of the king’s guard Chaol. While book one looked more like Celaena and Dorian would be together I always held out hope for the latter. And then I read Crown of Midnight! That book was one of my overall favorites and I got to watch this relationship form. It was beautiful and then everything blew up. I started the third book in the series and was instantly disappointed because it felt like an entirely new series. So while I have stopped reading it since then Chaol and Celaena will forever be one of my favorite ships. 

10. Supergirl-Kara and Mon-El

Mon-El returned to Supergirl last season and while Karamel was apart for the majority of the season viewers got to see a more mature Mon-El. There has always been much debate over his character as well as his relationship with Kara, but I have always been a fan of the Daxamite. In this season he returned to the present from the future where he was a part of the Legion of Superheroes and he was married. Kara, still recovering from the aftermath of season two, was thrilled to see him, but much had changed. While moments of this season were aggravating the two still had some great chemistry on screen. It was still very clear of their feelings for one another, but yet again Mon-El had to leave. This time taking Winn with him (which is a rant for another day). So while they might not have a future this is another ship that will always be one of my favorites. 

9. Victoria-Lord Alfred and Drummond

This ship instantly pulled my heart strings and ultimately (SPOILER ALERT) crushed my soul. Lord Alfred and Edward Drummond’s relationship started in season one of Victoria, but truly got its own story line in season 2. As expected in this masterpiece drama there were twists and turns that kept this couple part. Given the time period two men could not be together and Drummond was engaged to be married to a woman. But what none of us saw coming was his death. I still cannot believe it. He will be truly missed in the newest season which will air in the new year. 

8. Anne with an E-Anne and Gilbert

Netflix’s Anne with an E returned with a second season this year and we were blessed with more Shirbert moments between Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe. While the beginning of this season saw Gilbert at sea (going off from L.M. Montgomery’s novel), there were still some great moments between the two characters from Anne writing him letters about the “gold,” to Gilbert not noticing her hair and letting her know it was good to see her. And who could forget this important moment (above) from the finale. Fortunately for us the series has just gotten picked up for a third season. I cannot wait to see what’s in store next!

7. Daredevil-Matt and Karen

While against popular ships I found myself shipping Matt Murdock and Karen Page hard as I began season 1 of Daredevil this past spring. In season 1 I took every moment I could get between the two of them and then I was a little too excited when they got “together” in season 2. While it didn’t end well for the two of them there were some really great moments I find myself reliving on YouTube. I have not watched season 3 yet (mainly because I want to continue to watch the Marvel Netflix shows in order and I have only just finished The Defenders). With the recent news of the show being cancelled I can only hope these two end on good terms. (Even if it is not romantically as I may hope. Please no spoilers.)

6. Set it Up-Harper and Charlie

This romantic comedy quickly made its way into my heart and into my top 10 favorite movies (I KNOW). This is all thanks to its lead characters Harper and Charlie. These two assistants were witty, relatable and just had an overall great chemistry that I am upset they are not together in real life. I have honestly watched this movie far too many times and each time my love for this ship gets stronger. I feel like the movie ends too quick because I want to know more about what happens to them. It might ruin it but would it be too much to ask for a sequel, Netflix?? 

5. Legacies-All of them

Okay, so by saying ALL OF THEM I don’t think I’m necessarily cheating. This show is still in its beginning and still establishing itself. They are still finding their ships and we are discovering the characters. But I have to say I like so many of them that it’s hard to choose just one pairing. Julie Plec has done a FANTASTIC job of having a lot of her major cast interact with one another and they each bring out something different in one another’s characters. One day I’m shipping Hope and Josie and the next I like Hope and Raphael. You can really tell good writing and characters when you can like so many different combinations and not feel mad about it. If you aren’t watching Legacies make sure to tune into the CW because you are missing out. 

4. The Originals-Klaus and Caroline

Yes, you did see this ship on my list from last year and that is because Klaus and Caroline are one of my top OTPs. I was excited to see Klaus on the Vampire Diaries so it is no surprise that I was beyond excited to hear of Caroline coming to the Originals in its final season. It was great to see the pair in the same room again. They were both parents now and had grown so much. Every time they recognized that in each other I got chills. So [SPOILER ALERT] while Klaus “had to die” I am extremely glad that he and Caroline got closure for their ship. In a way they were endgame and as a Klaroline fan, always and forever, that’s all a girl could ask for. 

3. Dawson’s Creek-Pacey and Joey

Dawson’s Creek was my summer binge this year. I wanted something “retro” that was just about regular teens (no superhero powers or magic). Going into this show I obviously knew a good amount of spoilers seeing as how it started in the late 90s, so I knew that Pacey Witter and Joey Potter would eventually become a couple. I now just had to wait for the when...and while at times it might have felt excruciating, I took any and all moments between the two characters (even before season 3 when things really get set into motion). There is just something so great about a ship between two characters who “hated” each others guts and tease each other constantly. It was well worth the wait because these two have become one of my favorite all time ships. While I am permanently paused on season four (pre their first break up) I have watched a bunch of spoiler videos to know that these two wind up together, which warms the heart. 

2. Brooklyn Nine-Nine-Amy and Jake

While looking for a new TV show to watch earlier this year it was suggested to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine. (Only once I started binge-watching the show did it get cancelled and then thankfully renewed by NBC.) What a great choice it was to start watching this show. The void that was left by The Office and Parks and Rec was instantly filled by this sitcom. The characters and story-lines were hilarious and of course I couldn’t help but fall in love with the slow-burn of Amy and Jake. Again due to spoilers of coming into a show that already exists I knew the two would wind up together, but it was still so great to be a part of. The two are adorable and while the story line does not always revolve around their relationship you know they are still together by a quick line they say in a scene or two. They are just so right for each other. Right now I am catching up on season 5 (about mid-way right now) and I cannot wait to watch the next season premiering in January. So excited to see where their relationship is headed.

AND NUMBER 1 FOR 2018 GOES TO.....

1. THE 100-Bellamy and Clarke 

That’s right last year’s number 2 became my number 1 in 2018! While separated for 6 years with Clarke on the ground and Bellamy in the sky the two found their way back to one another. You could definitely feel the tension between the two, which made complete sense after all their time apart but there was still something that brought them back together. My heart still melts when Bellamy finds out that Clarke is alive from Madi and seeing Clarke’s face when Bellamy tells Diyoza that she matters. This ship is the slowest burn of my life and while Jason Rothenberg may still claim that the two will never be (and that we should read the books for that) this latest season gave us Bellarke fans a reason to hope. From Octavia calling out Bellamy’s feelings and saving the traitor who he loves (OMG) to Clarke’s looks every time Bellamy and Echo were embracing. They are the first two to wake up out of the pods and meet Harper and Monty’s son. They are deeply connected and I can only hope for moments like this next season. For now I’ll just re-watch my favorite to hold me over (and that includes Bob and Eliza’s SDCC interviews which were adorable). 

 Here’s to another year. Cannot wait to see what is in store for 2019!!

[nautilusopus]

Serious non-troll: What if you like the cop-outs and the scrambled bullshit plots and the nonsense towers of half-constructed ideas? I agree that for example Nomura is a goddamn crazy person but I find his convulsions fascinating and want to see more of them.

i mean, you’re entirely within your rights to do that. it’s just frustrating that there’s visibly no effort put into any of it, and he’s just writing for the sake of what makes the trailer look good, and that’s been 100% to the detriment of the story ever since he’s started doing it

i’m not even inherently opposed to ridiculous convoluted bullshit. i’m one of those pretentious fuckheads that unironically likes End of Evangelion and thinks it made perfect sense, obviously, duh, with all its absolute nonsense of adam and lilith and rei being a god-analogue from absorbing both the white and black seeds and allowing shinji to dictate the ultimate outcome of third impact in the culmination of a couple of really fucking long and extremely obtuse character arcs. i mean, hell, i’m 38 chapters into a fic that is running off nothing but weird high-concept ideas of how reality and parallel universes work and abstract metaphor andsleep deprivation. in any other circumstances, i’m fine with convoluted batshit nonsense.

i think the best way to explain the heart of the issue is to look at what happened to the matrix trilogy. or actually wait this is tumblr, everyone’s in high school and would’ve been foetuses or something when Revolutions came out. homestuck, then. we’ll look at homestuck. 

okay so homestuck. remember when that was as big as it was? initially, the big stumbling block was the slow pace of act 1 where john just kind of fucks around throwing glass at clown dolls for a while and if you weren’t into that kind of humour that was where the comic immediately lost you, but what ultimately got the ball rolling was [S] WV: Ascend. the general metric back then was if you weren’t hooked by that one, you wouldn’t like homestuck at all, and for many people that was the point of no return. the reason WV: Ascend was as big of a deal as it was is that we’ve been seeing a bunch of disconnected nonsense happening all over the place, and this is the first time we see our first major time loop actually closed, with the promise of a few more being set up. all that supposed joke nonsense we’d been watching the whole time? it actually mattered, surprise! from there, the narrative spends a lot of time introducing a lot of new concepts – we have captchaloguing and paradox slime, and time travel, and doomed timelines, and exiles and future versions of planets from a parallel universe the metanarrative being perpetuated by the author being diagetic and fuck knows what other things i’m forgetting about. and then, to throw you for a loop twelve whole other characters show up on top of that. so then the narrative needs to spend time establishing who these people are and what their relevance to the story is – which it does, by having them be active participants in the first arc as things go on. this ultimately culminates in [S] Cascade, where we see all these different concepts eventually tie into one another because they were deliberately set up to, and it’s at that point that you figure, well shit we’ve hit a point where all the time travel stuff has finally come to a head. and with it, you’d expect it to also bring all the character stuff to a head too, but instead hussie has an entire extra act to go so we can’t have that resolve yet. 

so in the meantime, here are 20-ish whole other characters doing some other things. but we don’t have time to establish what’s effectively the silmarillion by now, so we have to speed past it, meaning we aren’t given a chance to care about these new people. but we can’t have a chance to care about them either, because we still have to tie all this into 5 whole previous acts that are meant to feed into this. at this point, homestuck is visibly collapsing under its own weight. character arcs are forced to fart around in circles because the status quo can’t change because we still need to make it to endgame with these character dynamics more or less intact. but that’s boring to read so we’ll do this entire “what if” thing and then retcon it all out of existence, and then have the fact that you can retcon things suddenly become vital to the resolution of the coming in place of anything we’ve already established previously – not the time travel, not the parallel universe with the trolls, not even the whole thing with the Scratch leading to the alpha kids being here in the first place – when the mechanic was only introduced in the first place to sloppily patch a story together that had long since devolved into infodumps that served to paint hussie further and further into a corner as he was forced to define his lore to get the plot to keep moving forward despite the fact that the narrative wasn’t focusing properly on the people that could make that happen anymore because the story had since switched focus from those people almost entirely. 

and in the meantime the damn thing got eaten up by filler, and suddenly characters from that filler are showing up like they were totally relevant to the main story the whole time even though literally nothing they did in their own subplot had any direct bearing on the story at large, unlike the initial 12 trolls. why yes, Alternate Universe Calliope was a completely necessary addition to the story! didn’t you see our important sidestory thing where they do Stuff, and then her showing up in the climax to resolve some other things that are sorta disconnected from the main plot anyway?

not to mention the shipping. nothing ruins a story faster than throwing in a love triangle or eight, and then immediately invalidating all the character growth that happened on top of that anyway by having it literally never happen. not that it would’ve mattered anyway, because remember, we never actually got to have any of this really developed to begin with. 

by the time we hit end of act 6, there’s been so many new concepts haphazardly stapled onto the story and so many threads brought up and discarded entirely when we already established back with [S] Cascade that the story works best when they actually do this and it is doable, that it stops being merely complicated and off the wall, and starts being spread too thin, incomprehensible, and ultimately no longer part of a whole narrative deliberately comprised of interlocking storylines. shit’s just kinda happening at you, and rather than getting to see parts of a text interacting as a result of them coming from somewhere for the express purpose of then going to somewhere, you’re just being asked to accept that, yup, that’s a thing that’s going on right now. neato. sure is some stuff happening and whatnot. and in the end, for all that posturing, it didn’t even do anything. in pre-cascade homestuck that wouldn’t have even been a full flash. a bunch of nonsense happens, and then They Fightan Good, and then it’s over and there’s not a single time paradox or meta-interaction to be found. none of the stuff they built up to over all these years mattered, and neither did any of the stuff they just threw in, either. 

i’m sure you see what i’m getting at with this. 

(also he treats the women in his stories like shit and quite frankly i’m sick of it and even more sick that people keep giving him a pass for it because it’s practically reached parody levels at this point , so there’s that)

i have no problem with convoluted twisty bullshit in and of itself. but it has to accomplish something aside from just existing, and nomura doesn’t do that. by his own admission, kingdom hearts wasn’t planned, and it shows really badly. characters and entire story mechanics and plot lines are introduced solely for the sake of introducing them. they don’t go anywhere or build to anything, because they can’t, because fuck we have to stall for kh3 shhhh just keep adding more soras and hopefully no one will notice. i think the last time any of this actually mattered was kh2, and even that had a lot of the issues i’ve mentioned here. as a result of all of this, the character arcs suffer a lot, and you’re left with nothing but a big ball of plot twists that goes nowhere, and a bunch of characters that only somewhat have anything to do with any of it. 

i don’t feel like it’s overly nitpicky to find this kinda gross and seriously insulting of the audience’s intelligence. it’s just lazy time-stalling. i get that people sometimes really don’t care about stuff like narrative and character development and are just here to see riku punching mike wazowski in the teeth or whatever, but i think it’s disingenuous to pretend that these aren’t nonetheless important parts of a game’s construction – especially a studio that used to openly pride itself on selling games with a focus on story. 

and the genuinely frustrating part is, no one cares. people are gushing all over everything square puts out because it’s square, so they know they don’t have to put effort into their stories. i’m well aware i’m in the minority for saying that these games are bad. but i also thought we were done with treating, “it’s just a video game, bro! why do you care so much about the story having quality as a narrative? this isn’t an english class!” as a valid rebuttal. 

maybe i should’ve used the matrix trilogy instead. most people hate movies 2 and 3 for the weird “YOU’VE ALREADY MADE THE CHOICE/EVERYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINNING HAS AN END NEO” shit and the bonkers christ-allegory ending. i hate it because neo is about as interesting as the rock that cracked goofy’s skull open.

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S5 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

(Trigger Warning: The episode Ethics contains the theme of suicide. While I will try to not go too in-depth, as it is part of the episode I will be discussing it. If this topic makes you uncomfortable or is triggering to you even in the slightest, please skip the section of the watchthrough. Thank you)

Conundrum: So we have us an amnesia episode. Who’s the poor individual who gets hit with it? Everyone! Yes, some weird scan thingy causes everyone to lose their memories. They still know how to perform their jobs and all that, but otherwise, they remember zilch. I’m kind of mixed on how they did it. Overall, they are intelligent and calm about the situation, which on the one hand feels unrealistic. You’d expect far more panic and tension if you suddenly found yourself on a ship among people you don’t know. On the other hand at this point even without their memories, they’re probably used to weirdness like this (the S4 episode Clues had a similar thing happen) and it’s kind of refreshing to see people handle a situation without becoming paranoid assholes. Also… they make some kind of awkward Troi/Riker/Ro love triangle. Troi has some familiarity with Riker due to their past, which makes sense… but why add Ro to the mix? The only time they really interacted outside this episode was Ro’s intro, where Riker was a hypocritical asshole who made her take her earring off. They really don’t seem to agree and I guess the writers went ‘well they argue… so it must be love’! Which… no, going with this with Ro makes zero sense and it really makes it feel like Riker is playing both women, which both feel OOC for him, and even taking amnesia into account makes him look worst. Why does S5 want me to hate Riker? Otherwise, it was fine. Just kind of eh. Again we kinda sorta did this plot already (differently but still) and it doesn’t become hard to figure out who the one behind this is when you realize that they’re the only one getting prominent screentime who isn’t a pre-established character. Still, it’s just alright, but yeah that love triangle nonsense, while by no means the worst I’ve ever seen, really was unnecessary. 2.5/5.

Power Play: In this one, Troi, Data, and O’Brein get posessed on an Away Mission (Riker almost did as well, but it flew away before it could posess him). They take Ten-Forward hostage which includes Worf and Keiko, and later Picard. This had to be fun for Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Colm Meaney since they ge to act all evil… though Spiner’s already done it with Lore, but still XD So it was fine. It was tense and had some disturbing moments like Posessed!O’Brein forcing himself on Keiko. Dear God I hope the Enteprise has a counselor (aside from Troi since she was partially involved in this) cause neither of them deserved that. It was also scary to see Data acting like… well, Lore pretty much. Seeing Riker, Crusher, Geordi, and Ro trying to figure out how to save them without anyone getting killed was also interesting, it’s the first time we’ve seen a hostage situation like this in a ST show (Space Seed in TOS kinda counts, but that was an entirely different scenario and was more ‘hostile takeover’ than ‘hostage situation’). That’s honestly all I’ve got/ IDK, S5 has just been painfully average thus far where none of the episodes have been particularly bad, but only like… three so far (Ensign Ro, Disaster, Unification) have kept me interested. Maybe that’ll change here soon bu it’s just like ‘…it’s fine but I feel nothing otherwise’. 3/5.

Ethics: I again point to the trigger warning above. The episode contains the theme of suicide (though it is NOT carried out) so if this topic at all is uncomfortable/triggery, please skip this section. So what happened? An accident has left Worf paralyzed. Crusher has called in a neurologist while Worf, believing that he can no longer be a warrior in his condition, wants to be killed. Needless to say, we’re dealing with some heavy stuff in this one. We kind of have a similar thing going on as in Half a Life where Worf wants to die as according to his Klingon beliefs, his life is over since he is paralyzed. He asks Riker to help commit it as he’s his friend and naturally Riker is appalled at this. Picard breaks it down for Riker and that while we don’t understand it we should respect it… but again we’re talking about assisted suicide. I get what Picard is saying but just… no. The episode makes it clear that we’re supposed to be conflicted, however, and in the end, Worf decides against it due to both an experimental procedure and because Riker uncovered that Alexander would be the one who’d have to assist in the suicide if Worf did it. Needless to say, Worf ain’t letting that happen. It does make Worf’s feelings clear, however. His anger, his fear, it’s very hard to watch Worf in such a state. The neurologist, Dr. Russell, offers him a procedure that may work… but it’s a procedure that is still in the experimental stage and turned down by Starfleet Medical. Needless to say, Crusher’s not exactly happy with the idea of using a medically untested procedure on one of her patients… but to be fair, Worf has refused all other treatment and the use of implants and with suicide the only other option, I can see why Russell would be willing to offer. But at the same time, it does come across her just using this as an excuse to use said treatment which also has plenty of risks on said patients life/further well-being, and Crusher telling her off repeatedly is very satisfying especially at the end when Worf almost died due to her, and she seemed more concerned with noting it than what her actions caused and said that Crusher was jealous. Yeah, Russell sucks. It does bring up a lot of medically ethical questions, however: is it right to use an experimental procedure on a patient when all other options have been turned away or are available? Especially when said patient is suicidal or when it comes to said patient's beliefs? I side with Crusher at the end of the day especially since Worf is very lucky to have survived/recovered his mobility afterward, but the questions are still ones to point out. Then there’s poor Alexander whose on the verge of losing his father and Worf not wanting him to see him like he is and… God yeah. Just as I complain about the lack of impactful episodes, this one comes in. It’s a very tough episode with everything going on with Worf, the theme of medical ethics, and it’s heavy on the emotions. IDK how well I can say that the episode portrays it, but it certainly hit hard and brings up a lot of questions for the viewers. It certainly reaffirms how much I love Crusher XD 4/5.

The Outcast: /sighs/ Okay… how to go about talking about this one? In this episode, we meet a species of aliens that don’t use gender identity, and if they show signs of identifying as male or female, they undergo ‘treatment’. One of these individuals is Soren, who identifies as female and falls in love with Riker. So… there are many things that this can be associated with, but this was made as a gay rights episode. Now… let us remember when this was made. S5 was airing during the early ’90s. This was not a good time for gay individuals. We were very much anti-LGBT+ in those times and the AIDS epidemic where they were scapegoated as a public menace still being rampant didn’t help. In many ways, doing this episode was a bold move and I can respect them for at least is trying to tackle the topic seriously. If there’s any franchise that you’d expect to tackle these kinds of issues it would be this one. But the question is does it hold up 30 years later? Well… unfortunately, no. First, if they really wanted to get the gay rights message across… why was Soren played by a female actress? Maybe it was the only way they would have been allowed to do this, but because of it, it keeps a heterosexual angle that causes the message to be lost. We also don’t have any regular/reccuring characters as queer which would be pretty important to have in this episode. Considering that TOS took the risk with making PoC equal to white people at a time it wasn’t at all welcomed, TNG not doing so with LGBT+ individuals is rather unfortunate to put it nicely. Not to mention it sticking to standard male/female stereotypes as the norm when breaking them down to Soren, as well as Worf’s sexist/bigoted comments. That’s no even going into other identities such as transgender and non-binary. I’d really like to know what they think of this one considering the themes. As I am a bi/demisexual cis woman and this was meant to be a gay rights episode I will look at it as such and from that POV, the episode does not at all look great in a modern light.

Maybe I’m just far too nice and should be harsher on this, and I’m not gonna lie I’m horrible at addressing these things so I apologize if any of this came out wrong. But between this and The Host, it’s clear that the show was ill-equipped to handle LGBT+ topics. But at the same time, back then even considering addressing the topics in any way would have been risky. I do believe that there was a good faith effort and maybe in some ways, it helped when we improved later. It’s always hard to say if people should tackle topics they don’t understand or not. Naturally, it’s rage-inducing when they get it wrong, but it can also open the door to getting people to learn and to improve. Maybe this was needed in the ’90s and they did it the best way that they could, and maybe the fact that we can look at it and go ‘we know better’ is a sign that we’re better than when we were 30 years ago… or again, I am far too nice/too much of a doormat and I give the benefit of the doubt way too much. People who are more knowledgeable/know how to address this far better than I have here have likely done so and I’d encourage others to read more into those perspectives. Regardless, the episode overall is okay I guess. I certainly felt horrible for Soren at the end as she’s taken to undergo ‘treatment’ and Riker trying to help her get out of it. Her speech, wanting to just be treated as a person and not be treated as horrible due to who she is during the trial did really hit me and is why I think that the show did mean well. If she wanted to identify as female and be with Riker, she should be free to and then how she was forced to conform to her society’s views at the end when Riker tried to save her, it’s just... hard to watch. I wish that the ending was more optimistic/hopeful but I can’t say that the message wasn’t loud and clear. It very much reflected society at that time, and in many ways it’s still relevant today concerning how society treats those deemed outside the norm. But it also has issues due to the execution as I already mentioned, and I can only hope that Modern Trek (Discovery, Picard, soon SNW) and whatever they do in the future are/will be better at handling these kinds of themes because there’s no excuse to get it wrong in today’s time. 2.5/5.

I hope that I addressed things properly concerning the last episode. But it’s now done. We have nine more to go for the season. Let's see how it turns out.

[figkeele]

trick or treat letter

First of all, thank you for creating something for me. :) In general, I like dark fics (so go wild if it's your cup of tea, give me all the hurt/comfort, whump and angst), but I like humor and happy fics as well. Every rating is fine, I like character/relationship studies, casefic, PWP all the same. I'd prefer first times instead of established relationships, I'm usually interested in how the characters get together (even in PWP I'd prefer first time) or how they realize their feelings for the others.

I'm totally okay with character death, suicide, deathfic, bittersweet or unhappy endings, rape, brainwashing, torture and violence in any of my fandoms.

Fic Likes/General tropes I like:

hurt/comfort

angst

casefic

what if canon divergence AUs (example: role reversal AU)

multiple universes, meeting with doppelgangers

time travel

Groundhog day AU/time loop

dystopian/post-apocalyptic AU

mind control

bodyswap

epistolary fic

nightmares

truth spell/serum

fairy tale retellings, fairy tale motifs

mind games

identity porn

trapped together

handcuffed/bound together

chosen/found family

deal with the devil

crossover and fusion with any of my requested fandoms (Overwatch, Horizon Zero Dawn, Detroit: Become Human, The Magicians, The 100, Supergirl) 

love/hate relationship, enemies working together, enemies to friends to lovers

mistaken for couple

undercover as a couple

forced bed sharing

falling asleep against someone's shoulder

huddling for warmth

mutual pining

love spells, curses

soulmate AU, soulbonds, telepathic bonds, soulmate identifying marks - I like when there's some angst with soulmates, some kind of obstacle in the way of their happy ending, maybe they don't like each other at first (I especially love this trope with enemies and identity porn :D) Also, I prefer canon-like settings with this type of AU. Or you can just use some kind of plot device/spell/artifact/magic revealing the characters's soulmates.

Fic Dislikes: domestic fic, pregnancy, miscarriage (mentioning is okay, detailed depiction is not) kidfic, de-age, all human/mundane AUs (high school, coffee shop, etc.), omegaverse, animal harm/death (passing mentioning animal sacrifices is okay, for example in fantasy fandoms, but detailed focus on eviscerating/torturing animals or grief about losing a pet is not), infidelity

OVERWATCH (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Mercy, Ashe, Moira, Reaper, Soldier, Widowmaker, Hammond, Queen of Junkertown

Story ideas: any kind of backstory for every character would be welcome. How the Overwatch team got together, first meetings between characters, first missions, first crimes committed. Character studies. For Ashe: how she founded the Deadlock Gang. For Widowmaker: how they brainwashed her and how she killed her husband or maybe show how guilty she feels about that in present times or what she remember from her previous life. Hammond being friends with either of the characters. For Queen of Junkertown: She seems like a badass, leading the whole town, would be interested in how she got the leadership, or a day in her life, ruling the town.

My ships: Mercy/Moira, Mercy/Ashe, Mercy/Moira/Ashe, Reaper/Mercy, Reaper/Soldier, Reaper/Mercy/Soldier, Widowmaker/Mercy

Fandom specific dislike:  Hammond having a romantic relationship

HORIZON ZERO DAWN (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Aloy, GAIA, Nil, Sylens

Story ideas: 

- GAIA being rebuilt, maybe how she and Aloy interact - Aloy and Nil hunting for more bandits, or facing new enemies - For both Nil and Sylens something about their pasts, backstories

My ships: Aloy/Nil

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Connor, Hank, RK900, North

Story ideas:

- North backstory, how she got to be a deviant - Connor and Hank solving more murders - Connor meeting Upgraded Connor and partnering up

My ships: Connor/RK900

Fandom specific dislike:  Connor/Hank 

THE MAGICIANS (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Quentin, Eliot, The Monster

Story ideas:

- For Quentin and Eliot: if you are into shipping them, a happy ending fix-it fic, meeting different versions of them (be it shippy or gen), time traveling - The Monster: I'd like to see some backstory for him, OR he seemed to have more "feelings" towards humans than his sister, so maybe even some kind of redemption arc would be nice, like he is the team's murdery best friend (after giving back Eliot's body)

My ships: Quentin/Eliot

THE 100 (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Clark, Murphy

Story ideas:

- For Clarke: if you wanna go dark, I would really to see a 'what if' AU where Josephine is not properly deleted from her mind, Clarke confusing her memories with Josephine's, and slowly losing her identity. - For Murphy: experiencing how is to be reborn in a new body with the help of the mind drive. - For possible Murphy/Clarke: seeing how Josephine found Murphy attractive, I'd like to see something where Josephine hooks up with Murphy, and later Clarke has to pretend to be in a relationship with him. Bonus if the two girls's consciousness change places from time to time, before Josephine is deleted.

My ships: Clarke/Murphy, Bellamy/Clarke, Clarke/Octavia, Clarke/Josephine (I know these last characters are not in the tagset, just mentioning it, if you are into these ships, you can write them)

DC’S ARROWVERSE - SUPERGIRL (Trick or Treat - Fic):

Requested Characters: Kara, Alex, Lena, Maxwell Lord

Story ideas:

- backstories, pre-series stories for everyone. How Maxwell views superheroes - or learns to work with them. Alex and Kara road trips or high school stories. Lena's childhood in the Luthor house. - For all the romantic ships: I really like the whole superhero identity porn thing, or the the love triangle between the superhero identity, the civilian identity and the romantic interest, I can see all of my ships working like this (when Alex was not remembering that Kara is Supergirl fits here.)

My ships: Kara/Lena, Kara/Maxwell, Kara/Alex

[queencanaries]

I feel like the fandom just doesn't want to see a character grow, especially a woman. They didn't like Laurel because she was "whiny", "untrained", blablabla but really if for example we saw Sara's journey into becoming who she is I'm pretty sure they would call her "whiny" "why is she crying" "she's always getting knocked out" "i cant believe this bitch would betray her sister like that"... the fanbase just wants a character that's already been established, they dont want to see them at their-

-lowest, they want to see them at their best and the low moments they had in their life that made them grow can just be flashbacks. This is why Laurel was hated by a portion of the fanbase in my opinion, they just couldn't handle her. I guess now that black siren is here they can do that but really I don't get why they praised tuna's abilities by bringing down laurel's it made no sense to me.

I definitely agree to a point, but I also wouldn’t give the fandom that much credit because it doesn’t seem to be “they don’t like characters - plural - to grow and evolve” but rather “they don’t like Laurel Lance.” And I think it comes down to the fact that she threatened their ship - regardless of the writers not writing towards Laurel and Oliver as a romantic couple but rather as a result of the comics and what could be drawn from the source material (Oliver and Laurel being soulmates). 

Outside of that particular fandom, I definitely agree with you. I think the hate towards Laurel in Season 2 is proof of it. I see so many people (who don’t like Felicity or don’t like Olicity) say that they only really liked Laurel from Season 3 onwards, and their reasoning was that Season 1 didn’t give her enough outside of the “love triangle” for them to enjoy the character, and Season 2 she was “whiny” and “a bitch.” So it’s true -- they don’t like to see characters at their low points.

I think audiences over time have grown impatient and they’ve grown entitled. I think that’s the biggest problem with TV audiences in today’s age of technology and social media. They don’t want to wait for a story to play out. They don’t want to go on the ride and see where things land. They don’t want to see their favourite characters or ships overcome challenges or be stunted, and when you pair it up with the accessibility we have nowadays to the writers and the creators, there’s this idea that they can tweet and trend and message and affect the show in their favour. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a new thing — writers of shows pre-twitter mention how much fan-mail they used to receive with letters and opinions — but when a show leans into something and seemingly does it as a result of these actions by an entitled fandom... that’s when problems occur and that’s when I have a problem with it. 

And the reason I bring that up is because I think you’re 100% right in people not wanting to see growth and development but rather everything already being established. I’ve seen fans who use to ship Olicity become pissed off that S3 started and Oliver suddenly declares his love for Felicity when they wanted to see this “slow burn.” But the majority accepted it. Why? Because they wanted to see them together, and it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t developed to that point as long as it’s happening. And I think the fans not enjoying Laurel’s S2 arc, who enjoyed her more in S3 or more in S4, was because they didn’t want to see her journey to becoming Black Canary, but much preferred if she was already Black Canary and contributing to the team/story in that way. I’m trying to think of more examples, but hopefully that makes sense on its own. 

But look -- the Olicity fandom isn’t the only fandom guilty of being impatient and entitled. It’s just how fandoms are these days because we can tweet the creators, and we can have our thoughts be heard and part of us thinks that it might change something. Maybe if we tweet the creators that we won’t watch without Laurel there they’ll bring her back to life? #NoLaurelNoArrow. Hell, when Katie was asked in an interview if Lauriver would get back together like it should be in the comics, her response was along the lines of “tweet the writers, let them know. I think that’d be cool.” Television these days feels like if we don’t talk about the things we love and if we don’t bombard the writers with what want to see more of, then it’s going to be dropped and I hate that feeling. I hate what ARROW’s become because a fandom was more vocal than I was on Twitter. I hate that I started the show and have been here since day one but because I wasn’t on Twitter saying “I really love the show how it is” it was turned into a show about Oliver/Felicity/Diggle because OTA fans were vocal about it. 

Reeling back to your asks - sorry if this seemed so off topic but it triggered this discussion from me - I mostly agree. But I think beyond the reasons of audiences not enjoying growth/development, or it being centered mostly on not wanting women to receive that focus/attention, I think TV audiences that are super invested in a show have grown impatient and entitled and there’s more people out there who want to see a Black Canary introduced with a canary cry and incredible combat skills than there are people who want to see a character go on a journey where they gain these abilities and these skills and become a fully grown and evolved character by the end of it. And that’s a shame. 

[raptorific]

do you have a problem with polyamory?

Nope. Not something I’m interested in for myself personally, not something I’m particularly interested in reading about in fiction, but I really have no objection to it if it’s what floats your boat. 

I do, however, have a problem with the way it’s been treated in tumblr shipping communities. This “Korra Has Two Hands” type of thing doesn’t really feel like a call for representation, so much as a catch-all “everybody wins” solution to a ship war where none is necessary. 

To use Korra, Asami, and Mako as an example (looking back to pre-Endgame), it seems on its surface like a win-win, now Makorra shipers and Korrasami shippers can both have their headcanon no matter what endgame plays out!!

But, of course, it’s not a win-win, because not everyone who ships Korrasami or Makorra would enjoy viewing it as a poly ship. In response to this, people sorta treated people on both sides, who wanted Korra to be with Yes Asami and Not Mako, or people who wanted her to be with Yes Mako and Not Asami, like they were the ones creating the annoying love triangle and they were just being unreasonable, because polyamory solves all love triangles, of course, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if “I ship something else” isn’t your only reason for disliking the other ship!!

And the real issue here is, why does there need to be a win-win? If, for instance, you ship Makorra and hate Korrasami, and I like Korrasami but hate Makorra, why would we need to try to come to a consensus where Both Things Can Be True? I don’t want your thing to be true. You don’t want my thing to be true. Let’s not pretend this is about representing polyamorous people or open relationships or anything about that, a lot of the time it boils down to two people who disagree on something attempting to create common ground where there is none. 

I appreciate the attempt at sharing, but anyone can date anybody you like in make-believe land, and me saying I think Rafael is a better match for Jane Villanueva (someone who would absolutely not be interested in any form of polyamory or open relationship) than Michael doesn’t really need to compromise so that I’m in agreement with people who feel the opposite way. We can just.... disagree....

Now, I’m definitely in favor of more representation for polyamorous relationships, and I’m not saying all polyamorous headcanons are like this. What I am saying is that I’m confused because whenever I express that I started disliking a non-canon ship because I now prefer the canon ship, or when I dislike a canon ship and prefer a non-canon one that I hope happens eventually, I’m greeted with a choir of “but what if [character] was polyamorous? then BOTH ships could get what they want!”

I don’t want the other ship to get what they want. I don’t see why we should have to reach a compromise. It’s okay if you ship both things as a polyamorous or open relationship, but don’t pretend like it’s this Obvious Magic Solution to every love triangle that people just haven’t considered as an option. Presumably, in the establishment of the love triangle, the protagonist has already come to a firm decision as to whether or not they’d be comfortable dating both people and whether or not the other two people would be comfortable with that, and if the answer was “yes” then they would’ve done that instead of having a love triangle in the first place. 

So, to answer your original question, no, I have no problem with polyamory, and I’d have no objection to seeing it actually written into some canon relationships, but I do have a problem with the fact that every time I have a problem with Cheating Content (which is very very different), or every time I support one line of a Love Triangle and dislike another, I’m shot down with “but what about polyamory?” like I just hadn’t thought of it. 

It really reminds me of the small but vocal crowd of people who ship an m/f pairing and have zero interest in bisexual representation until they find out other people headcanon one of those characters as gay (or that one of those characters is Confirmed Gay) and suddenly they’re all about headcanoning that character as Bi so neither of them has to be wrong, even though.... it’s totally okay if one of them is wrong........

And then when I answer that question with “no, that isn’t what floats my boat” someone invariably sends me a message saying “do you have a problem with polyamory?”