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sevenkittensinatrenchcoat · 3 years

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Cats 1986 (and Others) vs. 2016

A post I made a few months ago comparing information gathered from interviews with different Cats casts has come up again recently and I’ve heard even more interviews since, so I want to add on to that a little and elaborate on the things I’ve already said.

CW: Some of the language regarding Demeter’s backstory is a bit darker than I’ve previously mentioned

So, I’ve now heard interviews from US Tours III, IV, and V, spanning from 1986 to 2012. They’re all Broadway-based, and the Broadway Revival went in a very different direction, but the three tours were all very similar to each other.

In both the tours and in 2016, the cast was sat down before rehearsals to hear the “story of Cats”. However, this meant two completely different things. The Tour casts were told the plot of the show, who their characters were and what they were meant to be doing. The 2016 was told the story of how the show Cats was created, how ALW had the idea and made a show out of it. No mention of the story and characters. This means that the Tour casts were given useful information for building their characters, while the 2016 cast got something that was interesting but did nothing to help them do their jobs in the present. More emphasis was put on the show’s legacy than on how to actually perform it. Trevor Nunn did the 2016 explaining, I believe, and it sounds like he was on an ego trip, talking about what he did instead of what the cast was supposed to do. Trevor Nunn is one of the few people who knows how the show works, so this is quite frustrating.

Though the Tour cast was given a whole story, most of them only remembered the perspectives of their own characters. The point of learning the plot was so that they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the audience. So, everyone mainly focused on their own jobs. But, everyone knew Demeter’s backstory, because it was the first thing they were told and it caught their attention. It almost became a meme that the first sentence of the plot was “Demeter was raped by Macavity”.

The story begins with Demeter having just escaped from Macavity. He kidnapped and raped her. Though she didn’t want it, she kind of enjoyed the sex, which messed with her head quite a bit. Bomba went through the exact same thing, but because she enjoyed it, she acts like the whole thing was nothing more than an annoyance. The two react to the same situation in different ways.

Jacob Brent was either given a toned down version of the story (he mentions kidnapping, but not rape), or he chose to give a toned down version to avoid the uncomfortable subject.

The 2016 knew that Macavity and Demeter had some sort of backstory, but they weren’t very clear on exactly what happened. They decided that they’d had an abusive relationship, but that the whole thing was consensual and there was no kidnapping, because the only element of this story that the audience can pick up without context is that there was some sort of sexual relationship between Macavity and Demeter, but she’s now afraid of him.

At least one cast member said that Macavity was a rapist, but she didn’t elaborate.

This messed with Demeter’s character far more than anyone expected. The rape element honestly isn’t necessary. Demeter and Macavity had some sort of sex, but it could’ve been consensual, with Demeter enjoying the sex but hating the man. That’s actually what Gillian Lynne seemed to have implied in interviews. However, the kidnapping part of the backstory is important, because it establishes the connection between Demeter and Grizabella. While hiding from Macavity, right before the story begins, Demeter sees Grizabella on the Bad Side of Town. Due to not being a Jellicle before this night, she doesn’t know who she is, and therefore has no bias against her. She just sees this woman living on the streets, humans wondering aloud why she isn’t dead, and felt sympathy for her.

So, when Grizabella appears at the ball and everyone hates her, Demeter wants to intervene, but she doesn’t want to upset her new friends. She came to the Jellicles for protection and is afraid of them rejecting her for siding with their enemy. Still, she tells the tribe what she knows about Griz, possibly trying to convince them to be nicer to her, but it doesn’t work and Demeter just starts following the crowd.

The lyrics Demeter sings, by themselves, are musical exposition that doesn’t imply sympathy. A line like “You’d really have thought she’d ought to be dead” sounds like it could be played as an insult. The words can either mean “I’m surprising the poor thing’s still alive in her condition” or “Why can’t the bitch fuck off and die already?”. Without the context of Demeter’s backstory, Kim Faure picked the latter, when with the context, it’s clearly meant to be the former. So, Demeter’s delivery of her lines in Glamour Cat in 2016 is venomous, almost sadistic.

Later on, towards the end of act one, 2016 Demeter reaches out to Grizabella like she does in most other versions, despite the earlier delivery. What made her change gears? I have no idea.

So, there was a lot of insight on Demeter. She’s the character with the most detailed backstory, making her the closest thing the show has to a protagonist.

Another character that gets a lot of attention, as he demands, is Tugger. Many Tugger actors were interviewed. I think he’s the favorite character of the host of the podcast. Different Tuggers from different eras responded to certain topics differently. Tuggers from the 1980s were unaware that Tugger was commonly interpreted as Not Straight and that Tuggoffelees is a thing. But, the more recent the show their from, the more they’re aware of and interested in the topic. The Tour V Tugger joined very late, during the last few years of the tour. He had access to the internet and could see what the fandom was up to. He played Tugger as ambiguously bi and, though he hadn’t thought of it at the time, liked the idea of the Tuggoffelees pairing. Tyler Hanes, 2016 Tugger, was the only one interviewed who played Tuggoffelees on purpose.

Tyler Hanes was very interesting. He watched the 1998 film while preparing for the role and didn’t seem to like it very much. He wanted his version of Tugger to be his own and avoided taking inspiration from any other version. John Partridge’s Tugger and Hanes’ Tugger being so different from each other might’ve been deliberate.

But, the choreography is what really messed with Tugger’s character. The host of the podcast mentioned Tugger’s pelvic thrusts and Hanes said that he wanted to do that sort of thing, but the new choreography removed all of it. He couldn’t make Tugger as horny or sexy as he wanted to. It was a key part of the character, but the choreography just wouldn’t let it happen. The result is that a bunch of queens fangirl over Tugger, but because Tugger’s defining trait in his number is being vain and obnoxious, the reason why he, of all toms, is considering the sexiest is completely lost. He’s just a dick to everyone (except Misto) and they love him anyway.

Other Tuggers do act like assholes during the number, but it’s not the focus. The lyrics are about Tugger being difficult, but the choreography, often to a comedic degree, isn’t about that. The message of Lynne’s choreography is that DESPITE Tugger being obnoxious, he’s a sex god and that’s what matters to his fans. Blankenbuehlers’s choreography mainly focuses on Tugger being obnoxious, which is a better match to the lyrics, but it makes the character less likable.

Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The two most sexualized numbers are Tugger’s and Macavity’s. Tugger’s number is about a man being sexy. Macavity’s number has two women being sexy. Blankenbuehler redid Tugger’s number, toning down the sexuality, but he left Macavity alone completely, so it’s as sexual as it always is. Male sexuality needs to be toned down, but female sexuality is fine. This is what happens when a woman is replaced with a straight dude. I doubt it was done on purpose, but there was definitely some subconscious bias going on there.

The way the casts talk about the two choreographers is also different. Both of them are treated as the experts on the show, more like how a director is normally treated. But, how well they filled that role varied. Lynne could explain what every single move meant. Those who worked with her knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody has ever described any of Blankenbuehler’s choreography with the same detail. In numbers in 2016 that Blankenbuehler left alone, even without Lynne present at all, everything was clearly explained. Skimble actors, since Skimble’s number wasn’t altered much, describe people who’d worked with Lynne talking them through the choreography. No one talked about Blankenbuehler’s work like that. Every move of Lynne’s Jellicle Ball apparently represented something. Blankenbuehler’s Jellicle Ball looks fine, but there isn’t that level of detail.

The rehearsals of the the choreography were paced differently as well. 2016 was apparently put together in something of a hurry. Most Cats rehearsals begin with several days of the cast studying cats and learning how to move like them. 2016 devoted only a few hours to this. Gillian Lynne reportedly visited a rehearsal and was upset the none of the dancers knew how to move like cats. Cats has unique choreography in a unique cat-like style, but the 2016 team had no time to practice it, so they often come across as a bit too human. They’re talented human dancers, but they’re not very cat-like. Blankenbuehler’s choreography is often in a different, more modern urban style, that doesn’t seem like it was done with cat-like movement in mind.

I don’t hate Blankenbuehler. In behind the scenes stuff, he seems like a nice guy that the team liked working with. But, I don’t think he really understood what his role was. He was a choreographer and he did choreography. This would’ve been fine, even great for any other show, but not Cats.

Most modern musical theatre is based on opera. Characters sing about their feelings and that tells the story. The added element of dance takes the feelings of the song and amplifies them. The actors are emoting with their entire bodies in a larger-than-life way that creates an emotional intensity that audiences can empathize with. The music makes the audience feel what the characters are feeling in a way nothing else really can. Music is kind of magical. You hear a certain melody with certain instruments, and suddenly you’re happy, or sad, or angry.

This, by the way, is why going for realism in musicals is a terrible idea. Musicals don’t exist in physical reality. They exist on an emotional level that realism takes away from.

Cats rarely works like opera. The lyrics are mainly just adaptations of whimsical poems, so they don’t tell you much of anything. Memory, which features original lyrics and no dancing is an exception to this rule. In general, because they’re not dance roles, Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy have to use music and song lyrics to play their parts in the story. Jemima also does this whenever she does something connected to either one of them.

But, Cats is normally more of a ballet than an opera. Ballet tells a story purely through dance. Because the lyrics in Cats matter so rarely, it ends up working like a ballet, because the dance, unrelated to the poems, means something. It’s still a heightened reality where music invokes emotions and actors emote with their whole bodies, like in other musicals, but instead of the dance being an amplifier, it’s the storyteller.

ALW really liked a bunch of poems and wanted to put them to music. The result was a bunch of songs with a similar them but no real connection to each other. That works as a concept album, but Webber wanted a musical, an actual show where people danced to his concept album. He didn’t care about the story and didn’t expect anyone else to.

But, other people cared about the story. No one knew how to make a musical that’s not about something. Trevor Nunn added Memory and the storyline with Grizabella as an emotional centerpiece. There wasn’t a clear plot, but, on an emotional level, it now felt like something was actually happening. Gillian Lynne had no idea how to choreograph a musical about nothing, so she didn’t. She came up with her own interpretations of things and made the show about something. Several somethings, in fact. Victoria is going through puberty and discovering her sexuality. Demeter is recovering from an abusive sexual experience, with Bomba having a different attitude towards being in the same situation. The women in the story were given detailed story arcs that often revolved around their sexuality.

How sexuality is portrayed in Cats could be its own essay.

Anyway, Cats tells its story with a unique style of choreography. Because the choreographer is the story teller, Lynne had a lot of influence over the show. She was the one who knew all the details. Blankenbuehler was brought in to choreograph a show, like a normal job for him, not knowing what that would actually mean. He came in to have dance amplify the emotions in the song lyrics like in any other musical, not knowing that that’s impossible to do with Cats. The role of choreographer meant a level of knowledge and control that would normally belong to the director, composer, and lyricist. He didn’t realize that the show having any story at all depended on him.

So, he did stuff that looked cool, but didn’t tell the story, or that took the story in a direction that it wasn’t supposed to go. Tugger dancing in front of a giant mirror is funny in the moment, but that sort of narcissism, though funny, isn’t likable, and Tugger needs to be likable. He’s a major character and he helps save the day at the end by hyping up Misto. But, 2016 Tugger hypes up Misto because if feels like Misto is the only cat he truly respects. He has the same respect for Old Deuteronomy that the others have, but he doesn’t sound quite as sincere when he sings about him. He spends so much of his number antagonizing Munkustrap in particular that it’s hard to believe that he has any respect for him.

What can be learned from these interviews is that Blankenbuehler didn’t know what his job truly was and was there because someone important thought Cats would be more popular in 2016 if it was more like Hamilton and got the Hamilton guy to give it a make-over. Nunn was so proud of the show’s success that he neglected what made it successful in the first place, and the 2016 cast was rushed through rehearsals without proper instructions. Everyone tried their best, but they were all stuck.

For the most part, I blame whoever decided to have Blankenbuehler rechoreograph the show. Blankenbuehler did what he thought his job was and the cast did their jobs to the best of their ability. What really ruined Cats 2016 was an executive decision to fix something that wasn’t broken, believing if they made the Old Big Show more like the New Big Show, that would make people love it again. But Hamilton is no more like Cats than a cat is like a dog.

#cats 2016 #lots of cats tours #really long post #andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats #but it's not his fault #a cat is not a hamilton #gillian lynne #don't let her legacy die with her

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sunbellylou · 4 years

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ask for writers !!

thank you @tomlinvelvetfics for tagging me! and thank you @soldouthaz for making this tag!

1. describe how you first started writing and when you first posted: i’ve been writing for years now, i started with het (ew!) 1d fics in portuguese back in 2011, it was actually those little imagines we used to write, don’t know if anyone remembers hehe. i posted them on a facebook page i was part of and i remember the first thingy i wrote was something with niall, but i really don’t remember any details (but was probably bad as heck since i was 11).

my first larry fic i probably wrote around 2012 when i found out the gay fanfics world haha, i don’t remember what it was or anything tbh, in my head i always wrote and posted gay fanfic.

my first fanfic in english was a little one shot (like 400 words honestly), it was a translation of a previous work i wrote portuguese. i posted it a year and a half ago and it’s called playground love (please don’t look).

2. which of your characters do you typically resonate most closely with? do you base any characters off of yourself?: i usually write from harry’s pov because i love love l o v e describing louis and how angelic he is, so usually i tend to see louis as this ethereal ish character, cause it’s usually about harry falling in love with him. so whether i like it or no, i tend to be closer to harry’s characters in my fics, i always like to put a bit of myself on him and make the character real, you know?

3. where do you often find inspiration?: honestly? anything! i’ve written fics inspired by tumblr posts, tweets, pictures, songs, movies, things that happened in my real life, books. i literally wrote a pwp because i couldn’t stop thinking about leather pants (go read my robin hood au).

4. has quarantine helped or hindered your writing process?: in the beginning it was really helping me, i’d stay up till 4am everyday just writing like crazy, but then i got into the worst writer’s block and didn’t write shit for months. (and of course right when i started getting new ideas, i started working so i have no free time).

5. do you listen to music/noise while you write or do you prefer silence? always listen to music, all the time. i can’t do anything without music. mostly because my brain is a mess and music helps me concentrate. i usually go for some chill songs, some indie pop and stuff.

6. what is your biggest writing pet peeve in your writing or in general?: oh my god, when i’m writing and two or more paragraphs start with the same word, one after the other. it drives me crazy!!!! and sometimes i spend hours looking for ways to word differently the sentences, just so i don’t have two paragraphs starting with “the”.

also when my paragraphs are two (or one) lines long, i can’t! it has to have three or more lines.

7. describe your ideal writing setup: at the dining table, in the middle of the night, with some soft music playing in the background and some popcorn with me!

8. favorite time of day to write?: well, just said it hehe i like writing at night.

9. favorite genre to write + one you’d like to try writing in the future?: woah, that’s tough because i literally write any genres! i really love writing fantasy and horror stuff, but i feel like it’s not really well accepted in the fandom? (spec horror). and when people like it, they only read from bigger authors so i usually keep myself from writing those. aaand tbh i probably already wrote most of fic genres out there, so there isn’t much left to try.

10. do you struggle with writer’s block? how do you typically overcome it? i’m writer’s block bitch and i do not know how to overcome her

11. what is the easiest part of your writing process and the most difficult? outlining tbh, i usually don’t (and it comes back to kick me in the ass). i always have too many ideas at the same time and can’t stick to one, so outlining and finding the right plot is really hard.

12. how do you come up with original characters? (if applicable): lately i haven’t really had the chance to come up with ocs, but when i wrote original books (not fanfics and stuff), i usually started with the gender and one outstanding personality trait and went from there.

13. what is your favorite and least favorite word? i love the words ethereal and breeze, omg you’ll find them A LOT on my fics. and my least favorite word is growl.

14. what is one thing about your writing that you’re really proud of and one thing you hope to continue working at?: i think i describe the vibez in the scene really well, it’s my favorite thing to do. and i need to work more on building my sentences, because theyre always supermessy.

15. what work of yours has your favorite ‘verse/world building? how did you come up with it?: definitely the fic i’m working on right now! i’m putting so much work on the world building since it’s a fantasy fic, so i’m planning every little detail about it. i hope other people like it too when they read it !!

16. what font and size do you write in? single spaced or double?: comic sans, 12pt, single spaced. don’t come at me.

17. what is a typo(s) you find yourself making consistently?: because english isn’t my first language, i always change like ‘th’ for ‘d’ (because it has a similar sound in portuguese), so catch me typing ‘de’ instead of ‘the’ or ‘dey’ instead of ‘they’.

18. (if applicable) do you separate fic writing from fandom?: i didn’t understand the question so i’m pretending i never read it hehe

19. what emotion is your favorite to write? which is the most difficult?: my favorite to write is probably,,, love/adoration, like harry looking at louis like he’s the whole world and thinking about how amazing he is? i love it.

and the most difficult is probably anger, i find it really hard to write like fights and stuff like that because usually i make the characters sound more sad than angry.

20. what is one thing you hope readers always take away from your works?: i never thought about that but,,, i hope they start finding joy in small things that happen in their day. that’s something i use a lot in my fics and i think it’s very important to bring it to real life. like enjoy that late night tea, showering in the morning, spending a summer day in the house, cleaning, etc.

21. what is the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?: i think the best advice is one i got from someone i no longer talk to, they told me this when i first started writing in english and it is to stop trying to write fancy or like native english speakers, because it’s much better to write simple sentences that i’m confident about than write sentences with words i barely know how to use.

and the worst advice is TO OUTLINE! i know i should maybe i dont know but leave me alone, i hate outlining bye

22. which one of your works would you most want to see turned into a film/television show?: ok so,,, it’s a book i wrote like three years ago with original characters. it’s called great evil and i wrote it in portuguese. it’s full of violence and acid humor, about a very evil and sarcastic demon and an angry hunter. (one day i’ll translate that book and turn it into a larry fic)

23. do you write scenes chronologically or out of order?: chronologically. always

24. how do you handle criticism?: really bad. please be careful with what words you use. i’m already really hard on myself when it comes to my writing, so sometimes someone says something and (it might be dramatic but) i feel my world crumbling and i want to stop writing right away.

25. what is the advice you would give to someone who is looking to start writing?: just,,, do it. there’s no right or wrong way to do it. there’s no such thing as too much or too little, bad or good plots. every idea is a good idea. write it for yourself, write something you like. go ahead and just do it. there’s always someone out there who will enjoy your work, no matter what.

26. what kind of feedback on your work always makes your day?: any comments make my day tbh, if you comment on my fic i’ll be forever grateful and will be smiling like a fool the whole day. honestly, even a “omg i loved it” comment can make my day.

27. which fic ‘verse of your own would you most like to exist in? which fic’s characters would you most like to befriend?: the one i’m writing 100%, please i want to live in a fantasy world. i wanna live in the water kingdom and have faerie louis as my king please.

and i’d like to befriend louis from my fic kiss me in your chevrolet, he’s a sweetheart and i must protecc.

28. what do you always enjoy getting asks about/wish people would ask about more?: anything! i rarely get asks so anything is good hehe

29. what has writing added to your life? how has it changed you?: it’s such a big part of my life, i spent all my teenage years writing and it really is what built my personality. it helped me being more creative with all aspects of my life and take life lightly, enjoy little things and moments.

30. why do you write?: i just love having ideas and putting out there, playing with words and finding new ways to describe daily things.

boost yourself + tags!

1a. share the last sentence you wrote:

The path through the dense forest, covered in slippery rocks and burning trees is already difficult enough, but it becomes ten times worse when you’re being pestered by small, demonic creatures.

2a. describe the wip you’re most excited about:

i’m honestly only working on one fic right now and i’m super duper excited about it

3a. share the piece of dialogue from one of your works you’re most proud of:

"I mean, I still don't plan on watching Star Wars, so…"

The boy groans playfully, throwing his head back and Louis' eyes are suddenly really interested in the column of the guy's throat.

"Americans really have no culture." He shoulders Louis slightly, warmth spreading through Louis' dainty shoulder and making him trip to the side lightly. With a faux outraged scoff, Louis waves a dismissing hand.

“What do British people know about culture? All you do is drink tea and talk about the weather all day,” Louis teases with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Also, Star Wars is American, just so you know.” He rolled his eyes playfully, feeling surprisingly comfortable in his presence.

Skater Boy sighs comically, shaking his head, his wavy locks falling gracefully on the sides of his face and Louis can’t stop thinking about how soft his hair must be.

“You got me there.”

not posted but i kinda like it (i’m not really good with dialogues, so it was really hard to find one lmao)

4a. share the best first and last lines from your work(s): I will do only those that are already published:

best first lines are from a halloween fic i never finished:

Louis’ blue eyes snap open. His heart pounds fast inside his rib cage, making something as easy as breathing almost impossible. Sweat drenches his body and he feels like drowning. He feels too awake and wary as his breathing calms down, as well as his grips on the sheets under him loosen.

best last lines are from my 2019 BLFF there’s more than one place to call home:

Their life was utter chaos, and they were definitely complete opposites, and sometimes Harry wished Louis would just shut the hell up, but at the same time, Harry wouldn’t change a single thing about his life, because he had Louis, and that was all that mattered to him.

5a. link the last fic you read: it was the devil's in the details by @raspberryoatss

6a. link the last work you published: you could take a lick (but it’s too cold to bite me)

7a. link to your ao3 (if applicable): cinnamons

8a. someone that inspires you: louis hehe

9a. a comfort fic/work that you’ve been grateful for this year: tbh i don’t read a lot of fics, but there’s this work a friend of mine wrote. it was in portuguese and she ended up deleting it but it’s amazing.

10a. other writers that you’d like to tag! @bottomlwt @raspberryoatss

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saltpepperbeard · 4 years

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A Jotato’s THG Story (novel?)

So a few days ago, the lovely @everlarkedalways asked me to Weave My THG Tale™. And, in being VERY on brand in regards for my THG Story, I’m late to the party lol! Mostly because of work, partly because I was avoiding Ballad spoilers, and a tad bit because...I’m a potato. BUT, now that I am free of any large projects and finally have Ballad in my hands, I’m finally able to look past my potato roots and talk about how a certain wATER POTATO ARCHER CHANGED MY LIFE lmao.

Ara has jokes though, let me tell you. “Keep it short” l m a o; THIS IS ABOUT TO BE A NOVEL AND WE KNOW IT. ARE YOU READING BALLAD? HERE’S A NEW 500 PAGE BOOK FOR YOU TBH-

I’ve told this story a few times before, but it’s always delightful to look back on things and see all the twists and turns I’ve experienced with this franchise. The most notable being, I started out HATING Hunger Games lol!

I was in ninth grade when THG started to become like, a global phenomenon. Everyone was reading it, everyone was talking about it, and it was everywhere. And for whatever reason, instead of actually sitting down and, idk, GIVING IT A TRY LMAO, my reaction instead was to DESPISE IT. Guess it was that edgy, irate, “I’m ABOVE the general masses ha look at me,” fresh-out-of-middle-school mentality. And also, my justification for hating it so much was along the lines of, “Wow it’s just a series about kids killing each other? WHAT’S THE APPEAL???”

Which like fjlksjdksds...If I could look back on my early 2012 self?

She had no idea what was in store for her lmao.

Anyway, the premiere of the movie came and went, and I was still hard set in my ways. THAT WAS, until that same summer. I can’t exactly remember which clips I stumbled upon first? But I know I came across the Joshifer+Liz Banks interview, and also a ton of Perfectly Legal Movie Clips™ on YouTube. Both of which silently chained my soul without me realizing LMAO. I remember thinking that the main actors were so cute and played off each other well (AGAIN LMAO, GIRL, BIG STORM COMING), and also remember being totally intrigued by all the clips I watched. It was mainly clips of Katniss in the arena, and I think it made me realize that wow hey, there’s an ACTUAL STORY HERE, WITH A FEMALE PROTAGONIST NO LESS.

The story gets a tad fuzzy for me here, but I do believe I got the books and quickly read through them shortly after I essentially watched the entire movie on YouTube through clips jdksljdks. I can’t really recall what I thought about the books really? Because, I think I BREEZED through them. I was so excited that I just ZOOMED TF THROUGH. I inhaled the series in one GIANT GULP. I think I even read THG in a single day jdlsjklaads. It definitely wasn’t a cautious read through to get a better sense of the detail and literary devices.

BUT, despite my excitement, I still hadn’t reached the God Tier “OBSESSIVE” stage yet. The light bulb hadn’t fully come on yet. It wasn’t until late 2013 when Catching Fire came out that I REALLY STARTED TO GO BALLISTIC LMAO. Actually, one of my fondest THG memories comes from this time, because I think it was really like, the OFFICIAL starting block for my obsession.

I was riding on a bus to a Theatre Competition, and my best friend had just gotten the CF Soundtrack for us to listen to. I remember being absolutely enamored with it- Mirrors, We Remain, and Lean in particular. And idk, something at that point just kind of told me that Catching Fire was going to be my anchor. Sure enough, after the competition was over, said friend and I went to go see the movie together.

And I astral projected lmao. I ACHIEVED HUNGER GAMES ENLIGHTENMENT. THE LIGHT BULB SWITCHED TF ON.

I was quick to see it again the following day, and I think saw it another two times in theaters after that. I also started drawing fanart of it, and looking for more pictures/interviews. And the want for more content, the DESIRE to go crazy about it, is what eventually lead me to finding the fandom here on Tumblr. I had had a Tumblr since 2012, but never really used it with a purpose. But when I realized there were people posting all sorts of stuff about THG? Boom- another light bulb. I followed tons of people, and officially changed my url to what it is today. “Star’s” for my internet alias at the time, and “Mahogany” for my love of Effie/that Iconic Line.

HOWEVER LOL, Tumblr would lead me towards a different side, something I didn’t expect to get pulled into so hard at all. Because, I distinctly remember coming on one night in December of 2013, and seeing @joshmopolitan and a few others posting about Josh going to the UK game. And that of course, lead me down the Celebrity Rabbit Hole, and lead me towards the Chaotic, Wonderful, Crazy-

JOSHIFER FANDOM.

((Also, before you crinkle your nose, *raises cane* BACK IN MY DAY, EVERYONE SHIPPED JOSHIFER LOL. *Snow voice* DON’T LIE. Like, everyone thought they were cute to some sort of degree, or believed they were going to get together. Shoutout to the Joshifer Golden Days, man.))

And thank goodness for it tbh. Because it was JUST when I was itching to write fanfiction with everyone else, and just when I was struggling HARDCORE with writing Everlark. @joshmopolitan and @youarebeingridiculous were sort of my introductions into RPF, with @youarebeingridiculous giving me nudges towards my first Everlark fic, before also nudging me towards my first Joshifer fic. And when my first Joshifer fic garnered attention/when I had a blast writing it? ANOTHER. LIGHT. BULB LOL.

So I was dead af from that point on. I was absolutely drawn in. Even though I was still invested in THG, Joshifer was definitely my main focus from 2014-2016ish. I was there for the typical ship wars, there to read and write all the fanfiction, there to read all the theories, and there to partake in all the crazy moments. Shoutout to Cannes 2014 in particular lmao; I was in the car and my phone started going off like CRAZY, with many of my friends SCREAMING at me about the events/articles that had transpired.

Being attached to Joshifer also allowed me to write my first, and so far only, full length, These Words are a Lie. It started out as just a four part series, two parts of which I actually published. Befffooorrre getting to the third part and realizing I had WAY too much to deal with/explain/write, which consequently lead to me pulling them down and expanding upon them! And thus my messy, lovely, 25 chapter peanut journey started lmao. Though I look back on it now and realize how disjointed it was, I’m so thankful I was able to see that story completely through. I’m also very thankful for the SUPPORT and following it got. Wouldn’t have gotten through without y’all!

ANYWAY LMAO, because this is my THG story and not my Joshifer story, let’s get back to that. 2014 was WHACK because...LG was utterly tripping with its promotional material. And to think, it was just the START of odd/lacking promo, seeing as they were SOMEHOW WORSE WITH MJ2 LMAO. But even though I was incredibly salty at the time, it was so fun to be mad and chomping at the bit with everyone else lol. The SUFFERING OF NOT HAVING ANY NEW CONTENT BROUGHT US CLOSER TOGETHER. Also, going to Best Buy to watch the teaser trailer under Heavy Guard??? Was an EXPERIENCE LOL??? But man was I so stoked to get my poster and pin, because that was some of the first merch I got!

ALSO, MJ1 was the time where I got the idea to create a small YouTube series called “Tributes React.” I really really wish I could have been in the fandom earlier, because it would have been, dare I say, FIRE LOL to react to more than just the MJ1 and MJ2 trailers. But it was so so fun regardless, and everyone’s participation was incredible! And now all of our early, embarrassing, INTENSE fangirling is stuck here/memorialized forever PFFFF.

And, not to mention, Fran Solo himself watched one of them. Someone tweeted the video at him, and he tweeted back that it made all the hard times worth it. MY GREATEST FANDOM ACCOMPLISHMENT RIGHT THERE???

And finally getting to watch MJ1 in theaters lmao omg. I went with my friend before, and also one of my guy friends. And the entire time, he was HARD STARING AT ME WAITING FOR ME TO CRY LOL. SO HE COULD TEASE ME. AND HE GOT HIS WISH BECAUSE OF COURSE THE LAST 30 MINUTES OR SO UTTERLY RUINED ME. I remember shivering so so SO bad when the rescue mission for Peeta started, and having to hold my friends’ hands when they were creeping through the Tribute Center, and utterly SOBBING when Peeta attacked Katniss. Because...hello...I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again...WAY WAY MORE INTENSE THAN THE BOOK LMAO??

And then came the beginning of the end. I remember that promo time was even DRYER for MJ2 lmao, and that we were all DYING. Like, I think the big trailer didn’t release until like, SEPTEMBER??? WHICH...LG WHAT THE ACTUAL-

And we were also back to watching trailers in Best Buys jfkssdkdlsk. My Best Buy was also DUMB and didn’t have any posters, but @infinitegraces was awesome enough to send me numerous copies! Bless you, thank you; I had them on my wall all through college lol! DESPITE THEM BEING A HAUNTING REMINDER OF HOW HARD LG SMACKED US LMAO.

Despite my salt towards the INITIAL promo though, the premieres and what not definitely lead to MJ2 having a special place in my heart. I had just gone off to college, and was a timid, lonely little freshman with nowhere to turn. But the fandom was there for me, and MJ2 promos/premieres gave me something to be excited for. It all kept me going through that ROUGH first semester, and was there for me before I met my best friends. So thank you MJ2, and thank you all for sharing that excitement with me! <3

Also, I’d like to mention that I was SO desperate to continue the tradition of seeing the premiere with my friend thaaaaatttt...I left for Thanksgiving break two or three days early/skipped class JUST to make it back home in time to see it with her lol! I WASN’T HERE TO PLAY GAMES, Y’ALL. THG > ACADEMICS APPARENTLY PFFFF.

After that though, things kind of quieted down. I found friends and activities in college, the movies were done, and Joshifer was dying out. It lead me to use Tumblr sporadically, not posting AS much as I had before. I still had tons of love for everything, and still enjoyed coming on whenever I did!

Then I sort of stumbled upon our “renaissance,” like the lovely @everlarkedalways posting re-reads and re-watches. It tugged me in again, and made me excited to post content! I also branched out and began to write Everlark, and began talking about them/the books/meta more than I did in my earlier years.

And of course, said renaissance lead me to attending TOASTCON LMAO. Which I somehow managed to name. On accident. *Dabs unironically*

That of course, was such an amazing experience. Going to movie filming sites has always been on my bucket list, so getting to go to HUNGER GAMES SITES??? WITH FANDOM PEOPLE???? GOD TIER??????

I was also suffering from major panic/anxiety problems that summer, having just graduated college and being thrown out in the Real World™. So once again, THG and its fandom were there for me when nothing else could be. And despite me feeling off mentally, despite me feeling plagued by fatigue, I still thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone/having such a once in a lifetime experience. Also, getting to FLEX on my friends when we watch the movies and go like “I WAS THERE! I WAS THERE!! I WAS THERE!!!” is...A Time PFFFF.

Then of course, I started working a full time job, and shifted a bit away from Tumblr/the fandom. Not DELIBERATELY; more like, I was too Mentally Tired to really do much after work. But now that Ballad is here, and now that we have new content once more? I feel like I’m waking back up. Hell, I even went to Atlanta to see MORE film sites right before the virus started to make its rounds.

And so here I am lol! A SEASONED THG VET WITH SEVEN YEARS AND COUNTING UNDER MY BELT. I would very much love to tag everyone who had an impact on me, and/or who I’ve interacted with and shared fun times with over the years. But A. Everyone really out here CONSTANTLY CHANGING THEIR URL’s, and B. The number would be Too Great and I would inevitably forget someone on accident.

SO THEN, if you’re reading this, and we’ve ever shared some kind of THG experience together, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. THG has been such a wondrous experience for me, and it’s lead me to meet all sorts of amazing, talented individuals. It’s also been there for me during darker times, and has supported me in every way possible.

I love you all, I love being here, and HERE’S TO MANY MORE TAGS/RAMBLES IN THE FUTURE LOL! Like lmao, a new movie, you guys??? WHAT??? TRIBUTES REACT ANYONE???

-Jotato Out <3

#Jodi rambles #Like #REALLY //REALLY// RAMBLES LOL #thg #THG Story #holy shit i'm so tired katniss #i've been writing for an HOUR LOL #I'M SO OUT OF PRACTICE WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING SPRINTS MAN #MY 2014 SELF IS TELLING ME TO STOP COMPLAINING BECAUSE SHE WOULD WRITE FOR EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT GJSKLDJSK #I'M RUSTY LOL #RUSTY I TELL YOU #also this is probably littered with typos #what with my Clumsy Thumbsies #but here we are lmao #There's also even MORE stuff I have mention tbh #LIKE I NEARLY FORGOT TRIBUTES REACT LMAO SO I MEAN #WHAT OTHER MEMORIES DID I MISS #WHO CAN SAY #2014-2016 WAS UTTERLY CHALKED FULL

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nekoannie-chan · 4 years

Text

Broken-hearted

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Reader

Word count: 1099 words.

Summary: Because of the Snap you lost what you wanted most, how did you cope with that loss?

Warnings: Angst, sad.

A/N: This fic is a Reader’s POV, so is in first person.

This is my entry to the @sweater-daddiesdumbdork ‘s Amber’s Any-FUCKING- Fandom Fic Challenge with the dialogue prompt #1:

“Please don’t lie to me again, I can’t take it”

Also my entry to the @mariessecretfantasies ‘s 500 Follower Writing Challenge with the prompt #29:

“You’re were broken-hearted and the world was, too. And I was beginning to lose my grip. And I have always hold it loosely, but this time I admit, I felt it really start to slip” Juno-Florence + the Machine.

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don’t steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other’s people. The only exception is the ones I gifted ‘cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Marvel’s characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Five years have passed, we pretend to be happy... well a part of us is so we've been building, but we still haven't been able to get quite a replenishment.

While when we had to run away after the Civil War, we had a stable and happy life, although I could see how Steve missed being Captain America, he cared more than anyone found because he wanted me and our baby to be taken hostage, luckily no one suspected him as he was just two months old.

Steve and I had married a few weeks before the mission in Lagos, although perhaps misfortunes had begun since the HYDRA uprising, I'm not sure.

I can't forget the day... The day our lives were ruined again, obviously, it wasn't Bruce's fault that he called us, we agreed that I'd stay in the house looking after our little daughter, so I had no idea what was going on.

When I heard the commotion outside I peeked out, while my daughter was sleeping when I turned to her, I no longer saw her in her crib, a girl of almost two years couldn't go very far, right?

I started looking for her everywhere, when I moved the shelter of the crib I saw a cluster of ashes, what was going on?

I called Steve, something wasn't right, I didn't understand anything, and did we have to run away again?

"I'll be home soon, first I have something to fix, everything will be fine, I promise.”

That's all Steve told me before I could ask anything else.

The next few hours were eternal, I couldn't find my daughter anywhere, I turned on the TV, there was no sense the news they were given, how was it possible that people were disappearing?

If what the news was saying was true... So... my daughter was disappeared too?

Thousands of questions appeared in my head, Steve promised me he would fix what was going on, I tried to call him several times, but he didn't answer, he didn't have the slightest idea of what to do.

Steve came in the night, I started asking him a lot of things.

"What about Sarah?” He asked me.

"I don't know... she disappeared... As... I do not know... Steve tell me what's going on..., “I asked sobbing.

Steve was silent, I couldn't understand why he wouldn't tell me what had happened.

“Please don’t lie to me again, I can’t take it.”

“Thanos... did what he... he wanted to eliminate half the universe...”

“Eliminate half the universe?” I questioned.

It seemed crazy what Steve was saying to me, nothing made sense, all I wanted was my baby back.

"Yes, he got the stones of infinity and with a simple click he achieved it, he did not... I don't know how to fix it, forgive me, I couldn't...

I hugged him and we were crying for hours, the next month we tried with all our might to get everything back to normal, but we didn't succeed, nothing worked.

Adapting was difficult, it took us a while, and however, three years later we had another baby.

I was terrified, I didn't know how to tell her about the pregnancy, I didn't even know if she was ready.

"Doll, you've been aloof last week, what's going on?” He asked me.

“You’re were broken-hearted and the world was, too. And I was beginning to lose my grip. And I have always hold it loosely, but this time I admit, I felt it start to slip.”

"I don't get it...”

"We're going to have another baby," I confessed.

Contrary to the reaction I expected, Steve smiled.

"Okay, only this baby isn't going to impersonate our Sarah, we're going to have to buy new stuff.”

Since Natasha found out she comes to visit us at least once a week, it's the only one we have contact with after they returned from that trip in space... everyone broke up, I thought it wouldn't be that different, it just looked like we'd never been a team or anything.

I guess it's because it was already having years since we were, maybe we never were and we didn't realize it, maybe we were just co-workers or just people who met each other.

What we didn't count on Scott's arrival, how it would change our lives completely, though.

"Are you sure you want to stay? Steve asked me.

"Yes, someone has to take care of Becca, just... I hope...”

"We'll fix everything, I promise.”

Those hours that passed seemed eternal, Becca was asleep while I was still immersed in my thoughts.

As soon as Steve came back, I felt calmer.

"What happened? “ I asked.

"We have all the stones, now Tony will work on a gauntlet so we can get everything back to normal.”

"Sounds good, but um...”

“But?”

"Becca... is it going to disappear?” My voice was trembling.

In short, I didn't want to lose one daughter to get another one back.

"No, what we have experienced is not going to be erased, it will simply return to all the living beings that disappeared through the Snap....”

“And those who died as a result of the Snap?” I questioned.

Steve kept thinking for a few minutes, I wasn't sure if they had contemplated those cases.

"Only those who went for the Snap, the others did not.

I don't know what we should expect now, but if I knew something had happened to Steve.

"Stevie... do you have anything to tell me?”

I was afraid of the answer, but it was better to know. He took air before he spoke.

"On the time heist, something didn't go as planned on our 2012 visit, we had to go to 1970 and...”

"And I saw Peggy," he confessed.

I felt like I couldn't breathe, now I was afraid more than before to ask, Steve was going to abandon us?

I didn't know what to ask, I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

“She found her right partner and I found mine.”

"I don't understand...”

"You are my right partner, the family we have formed, I love you so much Y/N.”

"I love you too.”

"We should start fixing another room, we'll soon have Sarah with us.”

"Sure...”

I was still trying to process what he told me.

"Doll, seriously you have nothing to worry about, it's you and me against the world, remember?”

I nodded, it was what we said whenever there was a problem and some people thought we couldn't get over it.

"We will be very happy, I promise.”

"Is something wrong?” Steve asked me as he gave me my drink.

"Nothing, I just like to see our daughters playing together," I replied.

Steve sat next to me and watched the scene. He was right, now we're very happy.

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peachdoxie · 4 years

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I get where you’re coming from on the likes/reblogs post but also you aren’t really a content creator (correct me if I’m wrong) so this issue doesn’t effect you as much? I don’t think it’s wrong to ask people to think about how we as a community interact with and support artists on tumblr and to consider if there’s anything else we could be doing. It’s really hard to make it as an independent artist and I don’t think it’s wrong for artists to advocate for themselves

It's not an issue of content creators advocating for themselves and asking people to reblog their posts. I take issue when they basically guilt trip people into reblogging posts by saying things like "We're doing this for free. The least you can do is reblog our content." or "Tumblr has moved from a culture of sharing to a culture of consumption." or "People aren't reblogging original content anymore which is why tumblr is dying."

The first statement is technically true in that engaging with content encourages creators to produce more, but so often the posts I see act entitled about it, that if I see something I like I should automatically reblog it. No. There are any number of reasons I or anyone doesn't want to reblog something, and they're all completely valid.

The latter two statements are complete bullshit. Consumption culture has always been part of the internet. Having the ability to share something doesn't change that. We consume so much content every day on the internet and it is literally impossible to share everything we like. Tumblr has a post limit. Twitter has a post limit. I'm not certain if Facebook does, and to my knowledge Instagram doesn't, but there are other restrictions in place for posting activity on various sites. It's far easier and economical to like posts than it is to share them.

As for "tumblr is dying," I've seen this repeated for at least half a decade, and it's still debatable whether or not that's true, or even what "dying" means. And even if tumblr is "dying," I doubt much of that has to do with people not reblogging content so much as people leaving due to shitty policies implemented by the staff or people spending more time on other, newer websites that offer different styles of interaction. Like, maybe people not reblogging things is a small part of it. But the posts I'm arguing against often act like users not reblogging things is entirely due to the users being only about consumption and not about sharing, which is a take that entirely lacks a nuanced perspective on what impacts people's reblogging choices.

And also, the popularity of different websites waxes and wanes. There's a limit to how popular a website can get before something changes and users navigate to somewhere else. Yeah, those of us who like tumblr want it to stay popular and functional, but how many other social media sites popular for content creation with fair lack of corporate oversight have "died" in the last thirty years? A lot of them. That's just how the internet works, whether we like it or not.

My exasperation with those posts are that other people are trying to dictate how I and others cultivate our tumblr experience, which is very antithetical to my personal stance on internet activity as well as antithetical to a lot of other ethos that circulate on tumblr. I'm not so ignorant as to pretend that tumblr is one cohesive whole in terms of how people approach posting on this site, but there's a common trend of posts that talk about how to shape your tumblr experience. "If you don't like something, it's best to unfollow people that post it or block tags." "If you aren't seeing a lot of something you think is important, you should probably search for blogs and tags that do talk about those things." "Be careful sharing and engaging with depressive posts because constantly surrounding yourself with things that dwell on your depression is a dangerous coping method." This goes all the way back to my early tumblr experience in the early 2010s with the fandom vs hipster divide and the push against it that encouraged people not to feel shame in reblogging posts from the "wrong" side of the divide. It's likely existed before I joined in 2012, and has probably existed since like, the beginning of time, actually.

Like I started this post with: it's not an issue of people advocating for others to share their content. It's entirely true that more engagement with content encourages people to create more. That's part of how content creation works. But I take issue with five specific things that I see constantly arising in the posts I'm criticizing:

That if people enjoy something, they should reblog it no matter what

That users no longer care about sharing content, only about consuming it

That tumblr is "dying" because of bullet point 2

The guilt-tripping that blames users for bullet point 3 because they don't always reblog certain things

The utter entitlement that these posts have that users are somehow obligated to share things in order to support content creators posting things for free on tumblr

I don't like people demanding I reblog specific things. I don't like people acting entitled to attention because they're doing something for free. I don't like people making claims about tumblr's userbase that lack nuance. And I certainly do not like guilt tripping. It's a shitty, shitty thing to do.

Sharing content is good! Engaging with posts is great! It helps encourage content creators to make more content, which benefits both the creator and their audiences! But don't you dare demand that someone must reblog your posts just because they like them. Don't you dare solely blame other people for why you aren't getting the attention you want. And don't you dare guilt trip people into reblogging your content.

For what it's worth, I am a content creator. I don't draw or paint, but I do produce a fair amount of content. I make gifs. I make memes. I make videos. And I write, a lot. the difference is that I don't use tumblr as a way to market myself, and I don't get upset when something doesn't get the number of reblogs I want it to. I love it when something I make gets a lot of notes, yeah, but I also understand that there is an inevitable amount of randomness that dictates whether or not a post becomes popular, no matter how "good" it is or not. That's just how content creation works, and it's not unique to tumblr.

I'm not saying any of this to go "oh look at me, I'm so much better than all those other people" because I'm not a pretentious douchebag. I'm trying to model an approach to tumblr that I believe is considerably more realistic than the one found in the posts I'm describing. People seem to think, since tumblr is good for sharing content and helping users establish themselves as content creators, that that's how tumblr users are supposed to use it, even though there's inherent obligation on how people should be using it. One of the best things about tumblr is that it's very easy to shape your own experience and what kind of content you see, and I think it's wrong to demand people act otherwise.

#anecdotes by peachdoxie

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lovequinn · 5 years

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So I’ve always been curious and wasn’t to sure if you’ve answered this before but, what exactly is it about mg that made you fall in love with it in the first place and what makes you keep coming back (even though I know that right now your in a bit of a funk with that show)

i think i’ve answered this before pretty quickly/succinctly but i’m not sure if i’ve ever gone in-depth, so i can do that now when i have the time to kill! this may be the longest answer to an ask that i’ve ever written so read at your own risk!

i initially bought tickets when i heard taylor (louderman) was cast, since i had been dying to see taylor live in something since 2012. i bought those tickets in fall 2017 when they went on sale, for june 2nd 2018, about a month after i would get home from college for the semester. so i had some time to hype myself up.

in that time period i really, really fell in love with the rest of the cast. they seemed bright eyed and fun and watching the excitement as so many of them got ready to make their broadway debuts was just infectious. i don’t talk about it a lot, but the first half of 2018 was a pretty dark period for me. looking forward to seeing this show, waking up early before class to watch them get nominated for 12 tonys, waiting for erika’s vlogs each week, are the things that kind of kept me going and kept me smiling while everything else in my life was going on. i also started making a new friend on here with my newfound love of mean girls: i had followed gwen ( @erikahenningsen ) for a few years since the pitch perfect fandom days, but when she popped up on my dash with mg content, i actually reached out and started talking to her. and idk if i’ve ever told her but that helped me a lot in a weird, lonely spot in my life (as talking to her tends to do in ALL my weird, lonely spots now, two years later).

by the time that day in june came around, i had decided to leave college (something else i don’t talk a lot about) due to my mental health being completely in pieces. i didn’t know what i was doing with myself from there. i didn’t really feel like i had anything to look forward to long-term, so i was just hanging on to things i was excited for in the short-term, and the biggest of those things was mean girls. so it’s honestly a miracle that my expectations weren’t totally crushed with that much riding on it lmao. but i just remember sitting in that theater and feeling two and a half hours of pure, unadulterated joy for the first time in months (and it was the day that the bus got stuck onstage! my first theatrical mishap!). i was just so HAPPY, and i needed that more than ever.

i was for sure so excited to see my “idol” (i guess that’s the word?) onstage for the first time, i was super excited to meet gwen in person for the first time, as i said in a previous ask i also ended up getting my first job from that weekend, but i went back to see it again ten days later mostly just because i wanted to feel that initial joy again. and i did. it left a grin on my face for the next week.

then i won the lottery in august to see jonalyn’s regina debut and getting to watch her have that moment and watching the cast support her (and getting to sit front row for the first time!) just made me feel so warm inside and made me really start getting attached to these wonderful people and the work they put in eight times a week. the next time i went, a week and a half later, is when i met the rest of what would become the “mellow cool squad” and later turn into my chosen family. from that point on…it was history.

so, i fell in love with this show because it brought me happiness during a time when not a lot of things did.

but i kept coming back because of what it brought me afterwards. because of mean girls, i found my best friends. because of mean girls, i met the person who gave me the most meaningful romantic relationship i’ve ever had (no matter how it ended). this show has been a backdrop and a safe place to gather for so many special moments over the past two years, and it has just become a part of my life in a way i can’t describe. when i’m feeling down, i can be cheered up by a trip to mean girls. when i want to celebrate something, i usually would ask that we celebrate at mean girls. it’s so hard to describe “why” exactly i keep going back, except that it just…makes me happy. it feels like a home.

and this is due in no small part to the people in that theater, onstage and off. they are a huge reason why i’m so passionate about this show. the staff and security at the august wilson have made me feel taken care of in a way that i am so thankful for. i will always appreciate having a buddy on security who, when i had to run to the lobby at the end of act one because of some weird piercing headache, came to bring me water and tylenol and sat down to joke with me about his kids until intermission started. i appreciate having someone at the box office who asks how i’m doing and what i’ve been up to lately when i go to pick up my tickets. and this cast…some of the most meaningful words on dark days have come from erika when she’s seen i’m having a rough time. some of the funniest conversations i’ve ever had in my life, and the ones that have taught me the most about myself as a person, have been the ones i’ve had with gianna. taylor has gone out of her way to joke with me and ask how work is going, because she knows how much of the work i do is due to how much i look up to her. and so on. every person who has joined or left this cast has left an impact on me in one way or another. it’s why i go out of my way to see every understudy i can! not just because i want to experience the performance for myself, but also because i want to support the people who have, either knowingly or unknowingly, supported me in little ways.

so………..this was a HUGE ramble but basically. i love this show because it has fundamentally improved my life and made me happier, at every level, as i’ve grown and changed as a person for two years (even if i don’t always agree with the decisions they make, as y’all love to point out). and as long as i have the money and the time, i keep going back because of that! that’s why i guess, to put it in your words, i’ve been in a bit of a “funk” about it lately. that show that made me so happy is starting to disappear, both bc of content changes and bc the people who made it a home are moving on. i hope any of this made sense. ❤️

#q gets an a #mean girls

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1000-directions · 5 years

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Hello! You both give good advice and write Winterhawk, so I was wondering if you'd mind giving a few tips since I might want to start writing Winterhawk? Like, is one of them a raging disaster and the other mostly has themselves together? How do you see them? Which of them would break a (dumb) law and who would keep their dumb friend from getting arrested? I haven't read fics either so if you know of any that really nail their characters, I would also love that. Thank you!!

oh boy do i have a lot to say on this subject!!!

the thing about winterhawk is that they are both dumb beautiful oblivious idiots, but they are also both highly skilled and competent strategists and agents. there are certainly differences between the two characters, but i think what makes them so compelling is their similarities. they’ve both been brainwashed and forced to do horrible things that they would never do otherwise. clint was kept under loki’s thrall for three or so days and was indirectly responsible for hundreds of deaths (and directly responsible for maybe a few dozen). bucky was kept captive by hydra for seventy years and was involved in dozens of extremely sophisticated assassinations, including jfk. they’re both going to spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for things they did that they could not control that they still take responsibility for. they both have ptsd and nightmares. they are both still good, soft, loving people in spite of the terrible things that have been done to them. although they’re probably both down for a revenge spree to make sure the bad guys never get to hurt anyone else.

(they’re also both snipers. clint uses a bow and arrow, and bucky uses a gun. who is the better shot? it’s impossible to guess, they should definitely have a shooting contest to find out!! they should definitely bet on the results!! the loser should definitely have to take the winner out on a date!!)

they are also both canonically disabled. bucky lost his left arm and uses a prosthetic. clint is hard of hearing and wears cool purple behind-the-ear hearing aids (i realize that using the term ‘disabled’ for hearing loss can be fraught, but to my knowledge clint does not identify with the capital-D Deaf community, and his hearing loss is acquired after trauma and not congenital).

they also have their unique traits. clint has depression, and his life outside of work is always kind of falling apart because of it. clint is our good disaster boy who is trying his best, and his heart is always in the right place, and he is loyal and good and protective, but his life is a dumpster fire.

clint is 6′3 (tall!!!) and bucky is 5′9 (small!!!!!) and this is Very Important. clint has broad shoulders and really muscular arms and back because of archery, and bucky has real good thicc thighs Because We Say So.

clint has a one-eyed dog named lucky who he rescued after some assholes pushed him into oncoming traffic. bucky (sometimes) has a white cat named alpine, although he only started appearing in comics like eight months ago so not everyone is on board with this headcanon yet.

uhhh also bucky is like over a hundred years old, and clint is like, i don’t know? in his thirties? i usually imagine him being in his thirties. but definitely not a hundred.

(in his defense, bucky looks extremely good for his age, but being cryogenically frozen by terrorists for long stretches of time will do that to you.)

“wait,” you may be saying. “i watched some avengers movies, and this does not sound like clint at all?” and, you know, fair point. the problem is that the first avengers movie came out in april of 2012. then, in august of 2012 matt fraction started writing the hawkeye comic book series which is extremely beloved and really deft and emotional and powerful and really changed how a lot of people saw the character, but it was really Too Late for any of that to carry over into the MCU. when people ship winterhawk, they sometimes mean movie bucky and sometimes mean comics bucky, but they almost always mean comics clint.

i realize this is confusing.

this is why you have to Read The Fic and Learn From The Masters.

here at Winterhawk 101, our reading list is pretty simple, and it is: the complete and unabridged works of @captn-sara-holmes, which can be found here. it is impossible to overstate how much sara is directly or indirectly responsible for pretty much every single one of us being here. like, we all go here, but she built here. i would posit that every single winterhawk writer joined fandom either because they read one of sara’s stories and fell in love, or because a friend of theirs read one of sara’s stories and they got yanked along for the ride (see below: winterhawk is a pyramid scheme).

i always suggest starting with clint barton’s super secret snipers’ club, which i think is a very accessible way into this fandom and basically a masterclass in what makes this pairing fascinating and compelling and tender and perfect. where you go after that is up to you. there’s time travel, kidapping, kidfic, this one amazing fic based on the martian that’s so good i don’t even know how to describe it, and plenty more.

study sara’s work. learn her ways. realistically, i think like 80% of us are just writing our stories based on her stories anyway.

but also! there are so many other people in this fandom creating amazing fics and fanarts, and it’s a fun and thriving and creative community full of people who are excited about making stuff and excited about people joining the community. there are always fandom events going on.

here is a link to the mcu bad decision buddies discord (18+ only, please), which is not officially a winterhawk server but…it is a winterhawk server. it moves fast sometimes, and some people can be a little feral, but it’s a great place to do writing sprints and to promo your work and to meet new people and ask questions.

the winterhawk reverse big bang wrapped up pretty recently, and there are lots of new stories and artworks available for you to put into your eyes!

@winterhawkbingo is going strong!

@mandatoryfunday is an amazing account that posts a new prompt every monday, and people spend the week creating arts and fics based on the prompt, to be posted on friday (or like…on saturday or sunday if you are me lol)

the winterhawk tumblr tag is always popping, and lots of fans track it or check it regularly. if you post a story there or if you ask a question about fandom, someone will find it, even if you have no winterhawk followers.

in conclusion

winterhawk is a pyramid scheme

it is, though. because the people who love this pairing love it so, so much, and it’s something you want to share with your friends. you get sucked into it, even if maybe you didn’t want to and you’d been actively resisting it because you were so sure you weren’t going to like it (am i talking about me? who can say?). and once you’re into it and your mind is blown, you start thinking of people you know who would also enjoy the unique kind of hurt/comfort, angst, recovery, catharsis, etc. that this pairing excels at providing. you’re gonna bring a friend along. you’re probably gonna bring a few friends along. and you’re all going to create cool stuff, and the fandom will keep growing and changing, and so there is new fan content being created constantly. it’s a very rewarding fandom experience. it really, really is.

anyway, both those idiots would break the law if it was dumb enough. clint’s the one who ends up in jail, but by the time bucky shows up to bail him out, clint’s already slipped his cuffs and charmed the secretary and escaped out the window in the bathroom. but he probably took three steps of freedom before tripping over his shoelaces and faceplanting on the pavement, and that’s where bucky finds him, passed out in the alley.

#winterhawk #i feel like i did not do this ask justice AT ALL but don't worry i'm sure some other winterhawk fans are gonna chime in #we all love to talk :)#long post #Anonymous

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mr-mr-ontheradio · 5 years

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Something changed after Jan 2014. Harry changed. Jeff more in the picture. Enter Kendall still hanging by. Minimal Larry interaction. Something happened. Harry's entire look and persona changed. I always thought it was the time that Harry matured and wasn't naive or wide eyed anymore.. More closed off before cameras. Maybe Larry also had some fights, obviously like any couple. What are your thoughts about it??

ok 2014. I've been meaning to make a masterpost about this so thanks for the question.

So 2014 was the Where We Are tour, and the boys were all severely overworked and it SHOWS. Niall lost weight, Louis and Harry both look starved, and Zayn is horrifyingly skinny.

They look on the verge of passing out during this entire interview especially Harry and Zayn.

Zayn was ~rumored to be~ struggling with a drug problem and anorexia during this time, and dealing with his own range of drama but I'll keep this on Harry/Larry.

Obviously an easy explaination for the decreased Larry interaction is that they were broken up. And its very possible they are/were an on again/off again couple and 2014 could have been an "off" period but 2014 is also when

Harry got the anchor corresponding with Louis' rope (January)

Harry gets the heart (February) and Louis gets the arrow (March)

The christ-the-redeemer trip where Harry and Louis are heard kissing in the bread van and this picture is taken where they seem like theyre holding hands (May)

Harry goes to Jay's wedding (July) and holds onto the wedding bracelet all the guests had for the rest of the year, even after it broke.

Louis gets the dagger (November).

Harry sings "Night Changes" directly at Louis during both the Graham Norton Show and the Royal Variety Show (December).

There are a lot of little things/speculation in between but these are the big things I think definitely prove they were still more or less "together" throughout the year. The months we saw virtually no Larry interaction at all were from end of May to End of October, with the major exception being Harry publicly attending Louis' mom's wedding.

It kind of seems like the wedding was a big deal to management (even though I don't think the fandom saw it as proof of anything as much as they were happy to see it happen). But it kind of seems like Louis and Harry had to pay the price for this one because there was a big eleanor presence in the month or so leading up to it whereas before she was barely seen all year apart from one publicized ski trip in February before WWA kicked off. But from the 1st of June until Jay's wedding on the 20th of July, she and Louis were papped twice in paris and once in portugal, she went to 5 or so concerts, she was spotted leaving his hotel twice, she was spotted eating lunch with Louis and Lottie, Louis attended her graduation, Louis took her out for her birthday, and *drumroll please* it was announced Eleanor would be Jay's maid of honor (she was actually just a bridesmaid so they played that one up for the media).

They also brought Paige back breifly in the days leading up to and after the wedding with her posting pics of herself in Harry's clothes on instagram, them attending a party together, them going out to lunch with jeff and the mirror reporting they were dating again.

Meanwhile apart from the stunting, the fandom as a whole was FREAKING TF OUT over the video that was "leaked" at the end of May of Louis and Zayn smoking weed (coincidendally two days after the European leg of WWA had started) and we were being bombarded with articles about bad boy Louis and Zayn, and how perfect 🥰 harry 👼🏼 was 😱 totally 😵 offended 👎🏼 and 😤 against 🙅🏻‍♂️ Louis 😖 and Zayn's 👿 drug addict 🤢 ways 😒.

This wasn't the first time we saw articles about Louis and Harry no longer being friends, but this was definitely a new angle that started to separate Harry and Louis because of an actual reason and it was the beginning of Harry's image being separated from the other boys.

As far as Kendall goes, Hendall seems to have wrapped up in Februrary and then she disappeared for the rest of the year in typical Harry-stunt fashion. Nothing strange there. And when he did hang out with her Jeff was always there. Harry's most prominent "relationship" in 2014 was actually Nadine which didn't even start until December.

Jeff and Harry were definitely attatched at the hip right from the beginning of January for sure. It's not unlike Harry to be like this with new friends though, and he was the same way with Grimmy during the years before.

Jeff is a special case too becuase he's very connected in the industry so I think Harry felt safe with him and it might have comforted Harry to have someone like that he could trust looking out for him. I think Jeff was maybe helping him navigate his way around the utter PR nightmare that was his public image too. He certainly had a lot less "womanizing" stunts in 2014. Jeff might have even been talking to him about taking a break from the band, since 2014 is supposedly when Harry suggested hiatus.

As far as Harry's "look" goes he's literally been changing it every single year. 2010-2011 was baggy pants abercrombie and jack wills. 2011-2012 was the blazers and bowties and the fetus harry hair. 2013 was take me home/fratboy harry. headscarf harry was 2013-2014 until he started wearing those fedoras, then that was his look for a while as his hair grew out and he started wearing the unbuttoned shirts and took on a more hipster/rockstar aesthetic. then he started with the floral shirts and the skin tight jeans leading up to the floral suits and it went from there. Like I said it's never been weird for Harry to completely change his look in a whim. We literally have grandpa harry now.

His persona changed too but really it's not that strange considering he was entering is 20s, 2013 had been hell for him and Louis, he was so overworked that he was probably getting burnt out on the positive side of his life (making music and performing) and starting to resent the negative side of it even more.

As far as being more closed off in interviews, he was probably sick of them since they all ask the same questions and there wasn't much he could say that he hadn't already said. At this point if he'd been in a relationship with Louis for four years then he wouldn't have many anecdotes or side interests that didnt involve Louis or their private life on some level so he might not have had much to talk about. Try to avoid saying "my boyfriend" when you're talking about your life after you've been together for years and years, it's not easy. And he obviously learned the hard way that every thing he says on camera will follow him forever so I think he forced himself to stay quiet rather than risk letting something slip.

In my opinion, overall things weren't really that odd during most of 2014 until november/december when they started Four promo. They were touring most of the year so their lives were pretty out of the spotlight apart from the occasional stunting and Harry hanging out with Jeff in his free time. The changes we saw were typical of someone his position.

I think there were some power struggles behind the scenes based off their little rebellions during WWA ("i have a secret", refusing to deny larry twice when asked directly if there were rumors they wanted to clear up) and 2014 is when RBB started (though i think it was just for fun at the time). Jeff might have been encouraging Harry to stand up for himself against his management or at least teaching him that he didn't have to take everything lying down and he did actually have some leverage.

Jeff also might even have been priming him to go solo and if Louis and the boys suspected Harry was being eyeballed for a solo break out there might have been some tension and I'm sure Louis at least thought that's what was going on. But I don't think it's something they would have broken up over considering at the end of the day Louis has always been supportive of Harry.

I will say that 2015 was one crisis after another though and i think at the end of 2014 we saw that ball start rolling because all the boys looked strung out for the majority of Four promo and Harry was kind of being rebellious as far as maintaining his hetero image with comments like "not that important" and "dont knock it til you try it".

Anyways thats my thoughts on it. I am intoerested to know what you think changed though ?

#my asks

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timelesshonesttrailer · 6 years

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Content Warning: Frank discussion of depression and suicidal themes.

One of the most controversial parts of the Timeless finale is the death of Garcia Flynn. The series staff and a section of the fandom believe it was an honorable, heroes’ death. The other side of the fandom believe it was nothing more than glorified suicide.

So, which is it?

Sometimes, when it comes to media, things are truly left up to interpretation and there is no right or wrong answer. Other times there is a clear answer which is obscured by a person’s prejudices or ignorance. (I want to state that ignorance is not inherently a bad thing. It simply means a person is unaware of specific facts/realities.)

So, let us break down what happens with Garcia Flynn, not just in this specific moment, but through all the events leading up to it.

We know that Flynn was suicidal when Lucy visits him in São Paulo. He tells her as much in season two when she asks him about the journal and how he came by it. His family had just been murdered in front of him (the movie later telling us only weeks before Christmas) and he was being blamed for it. Not only was his wife and daughter dead, but he had no support mechanism either. He was completely cut off and alone. It is unsurprising that Flynn would consider ending his life.

Then Lucy appears, gives him the journal, and… well… things become complicated.

The movie would like us to believe that this is a Closed Loop, but it’s not. As I explain here, the series has always had a Causal Loop which means the Lucy that visits the Flynn we meet in the pilot is not the same Lucy who meets the Flynn we see at the end of the movie. That isn’t even the same Flynn from the pilot as this Flynn has an older brother and possible other changes.

The Flynn we see in the show does not act like someone who has been told he will die without saving his family. Everything in the Season One finale completely contradicts a Future Lucy telling Flynn these things. From teasing her about aging well to screaming at her about trusting her with the life of his child. These are not the words or actions of someone who went through the São Paulo scene we were given.

But, this makes sense, because it’s a Causal Loop, not a Closed Loop, therefore we don’t actually know what the first Lucy told Pilot-Flynn. An assumption can be made that she offers some kind of hope since Flynn is basically the embodiment of hope throughout the series. As he tells Lucy, they will somehow save the people they love, as long as they don’t give up hope.

However, his depression never goes away. The more we see of Flynn, the more we see of his self-hatred and conflicted nature. He tells Lucy he doesn’t sleep. We see him haunted by memories of his family. There is the speech he gives to Lucy about having become something else, stopping short of calling himself a monster. And when Lucy tries to tell him he’s wrong, he can be a father again, he has a very classic case of depression brain saying ‘hold my beer’ and trying to prove what he believes to be true.

Throughout the first season, Flynn shows several signs of being passively suicidal. (This is when someone doesn’t actively try to take their life, but doesn’t try to safeguard it either, often letting themselves be put in dangerous situations because they just don’t care if they live or not.) The biggest moment is when Flynn saves his brother, he’s risking his own birth because his mother may never decide to leave the country if she has her eldest son to take care of.

A parallel can be drawn here between Flynn and Wyatt, the latter man being far more passively suicidal. During the pool scene in season two, Wyatt confirms this by admitting he took the mission because he figured it was a suicidal one and he didn’t care. This is most notable during the Alamo. When Wyatt decides to stay behind, this is literally a suicidal act. If Lucy hadn’t talked him out of staying, then his death would have been suicide, not a heroes’ death or risking his life, etc. He didn’t think his life was worth going back to, so he figured he’d go out ‘doing one good thing.’

This is very much the thought process of someone who is depressed and suicidal. Depression brain likes to minimize a person’s worth and positive impact. It ignores the fact that Wyatt likely saved thousands of lives getting that intel out, and just tells him he’s a failure… at everything. That he was expendable. But Lucy was there to remind him that he is not a failure, nor expendable. It’s enough to get him back on track long enough to get home. Though, odds are, if they hadn’t convinced Christopher to let Wyatt stay on the team, Wyatt would have gone back to drinking away his PTSD and possibly be dead within six months.

In season two, both men show progress away from these tendencies. Wyatt’s admission to his suicidal feelings was a good step in the right direction (though I would argue the healthiness of hanging his recovery on a romantic relationship). Flynn shows his progress by actively trying to stay alive in prison and get back after Rittenhouse.

We can also throw a parallel in here with Season Two Lucy. When she is betrayed by her mother and then believes her support mechanism is gone (Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, etc), she actively decides to become a suicide bomber. She gets the grenades specifically to blow up the Mothership, with herself in it if she has to. But once she realizes she is not alone anymore, she scuttles that plan. However, the depression that had been building through both seasons gets magnified after being betrayed by her mother and the whole thing with Wyatt. She turns to alcohol, and one might interpret her chasing Emma as a passively suicidal move.

Now, back to the grenades, if Lucy had not run into the guys and had instead gone through with her plan, this would be classified as a suicide mission, not committing suicide. These are two different things, though yes, there is a fine line between. If she ran into them and decided to go through with her plan anyway, even though there were now clearly options, then it would be committing suicide.

And now here becomes the crux of the argument. What makes these things different?

Risking One’s Life: If you choose to do something dangerous to save someone, then you are risking your life. Running into a burning building, taking a bullet, these things aren’t guaranteed to kill you, but you know the risk is there.

Suicide Mission: If you choose to do something guaranteed to take your life for a perceived greater good, then it is a suicide mission. This is the ‘one person has to stay behind to throw the switch’ type scenarios. The ‘you’ll make it in but you’ll never make it out’ moments.

Committing Suicide: If you actively take steps to avoid being saved, ignoring obvious avenues of possible rescue or repair, then it is suicide. Saving another person(s) during this act does not minimize the fact that it is still suicide if you could both save the person and possibly yourself but choose not to.

Now, let’s look at how Flynn’s mission went down and see where it fits in the above.

First off, Flynn does not talk to anyone about his plan. He doesn’t say ‘hey, someone has to do it, someone has to take the risk, I’ll do it.’ He doesn’t give the team a chance to either a) stop him, or b) come up with a better solution.

The first part can be read many ways. It’s not inherently suicidal to not want to be stopped from doing something that would risk your life. But the second part is very telling. There was nothing that said that Rufus had to be saved right then. They only had the journal a very short time. A journal that Flynn admitted wasn’t always reliable. And they hadn’t even made a concrete plan of how to deal with Jessica or other options.

Instead, Flynn simply decides to slink away and risk his life on a plan that isn’t even fully formed or realized. This is clearly a passively suicidal action. Made all the more so by Flynn leaving a suicide note, for that is what the message to Lucy is. He may preface it with ‘if you’re reading this, I didn’t make it back’ but that does not change that he calls himself expendable, a direct parallel to Wyatt at the Alamo. This is his way of saying 'let me do this one good thing’ which we have already established is a clear sign of suicidal tendencies.

Flynn leaves the note then goes back (forward) to 2012 to take out Jess. Now, I won’t get into the logistics issue with this because a) if Rittenhouse wants her alive why would they ask her to get out of the car, and b) where the hell did he park the Lifeboat to be so close but not give himself away, c) did Jess really die that close to his home or did he call an Uber or something, and d) when he eventually dies on the beach near his own home why didn’t his fingerprints and DNA pop up in the system seeing as he’s an NSA agent?

Anyway, Jess dies, and then Flynn goes back to the Lifeboat. By this time he’s had some headaches but has basically been able to stay on his own timeline for quite a fair amount of time. Enough that one could reasonably assume that if they got out of their own timeline, they might actually survive. Yes, the script says that he believes he’s dead anyway, but there is no physical reason he should believe this.

He’s not bleeding out from a fatal wound. He is still mentally coherent enough to work the controls. All he has is some blurry vision and headaches. Now, if he interpreted these signs as reasons why he would not make the two-minute trip back, why would he assume he would be able to make it to his home and then far enough away from his home not to disrupt his life? If he thinks Rufus will be in 1848 and there isn't enough room in the Lifeboat, they can take two trips between 1848 and 2018, especially as the Lifeboat has a new power core. He should know this better than anyone seeing as he had the Mothership.

The only way his actions make any sense if his depression brain kicks in and convinces him to actively take steps that would end his life because what is the point of living anyway? He’s expendable. He’ll never save his family.

Let’s rewind for a second. When Flynn landed, what if he had immediately sent the Lifeboat back? While we can argue the idiocy of him running off like he did, it wouldn’t be such blatant suicide. Because yes, he doesn’t know if he will succeed on his mission. He doesn’t know if he will make it to Jess before his brain craps out. Or if Rittenhouse will get to him first. So sending the Lifeboat back immediately would actually be the smart, tactical move.

But no, he clearly believes he will make it back to the Lifeboat because otherwise he’s just stranded Lucy, Wyatt, and Jiya in 1848. So if he believed he’ll make it back once Jess was dealt with, why not go with the Lifeboat? He’s survived this long, perhaps leaving his own timeline will allow him to recover. Jiya recovered(mostly) from being the fourth person in the Lifeboat, so there is cause to believe he could survive this.

His decision to jump from the Lifeboat and stay on his own timeline where he is guaranteed to die is quite literally an act of suicide.

The mission is over. He has a chance to save himself. He chooses not to.

Garcia Flynn commits suicide.

This is made all the worse by the fact the team may not realize this is what he’s done. They know he went back to the Lifeboat after killing Jess, though it’s unsure how they could know he didn’t send it back before going after Jess. So maybe they do realize it was a suicidal act? Regardless, when 2023 Lucy tells Flynn he will die, she’s inadvertently, or purposely, telling a suicidal man to go ahead and kill himself, but not until he’s taken care of a few things for her first.

And again, this is a Causal Loop, not a Closed Loop. The simple fact that things like Amy, Emma, and Jess don’t appear in the journal, that the series staff admitted the journal can change, and missions listed in the journal don’t take place, prove that it’s a Causal Loop and it doesn’t have to play out the same way.

The team has five years to write a new journal, one that could literally fix everything. They could ensure Anthony doesn’t die and Mason Industries doesn’t blow up. They could bring back Amy. They could keep Jiya from both gaining her (forgotten about) powers and from getting stuck in Chinatown. They could even make sure Lucy and Wyatt end up together.

“What’s the point of having a time machine if you can’t fix your regrets?”

Instead, they tell a traumatize man to do horrible things, let him commit suicide over what he does, and call him a hero for it.

#Garcia Flynn #Timeless #tw: suidice #Timeless Honest Trailer

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twentyghosts · 6 years

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Earlier @fourteenacross wrote this post about our experience of getting to see the dress rehearsal for Rent Live (which I guess turns out to mostly mean that we saw the actual performance of Rent Not-Live) and I wrote this mess of feelings about my 20 year history with Rent the musical as well as the online and IRL community surrounding the musical. I’m depositing it here beneath a cut. (If you’re friends with me on Facebook: it’s the same thing I posted there.)

I've lost count of how many times I've had to awkwardly explain to someone, "I used to be into the musical Rent. No, like….REALLY into it?" Just in case I've never had to explain it to you: I used to be REALLY into the musical Rent. My junior high school chorus sang "Seasons of Love;" I adored it and eventually purchased the 2-disc CD set at Best Buy. I listened to it, oh, let's say 525,600 times. I convinced my mom to take me to see the tour for my 14th birthday. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a 6-hour drive from our home. I loved it; I spent hours hogging our dialup internet connection to talk about the show with strangers. My friends at school didn't get the obsession. I'm not entirely sure I get the obsession; I was a 14-year-old straight cis white girl from the Midwest hung up on mostly-queer starving artists in New York. (I note this because I know for a lot of Rent fans, part of the excitement was seeing themselves represented in a way that they weren’t often repsented in the media in general/musical theater in specific; I know that wasn’t my situation.) The closest I can come to identifying the source of my obsession might be the line "connection in an isolating age." Loving Rent brought me into a whole community of people who, in some way or another, didn't quite fit in a lot of places. I met new friends waiting overnight in rush ticket lines to see the tour (bless my parents for indulging my quest to sleep outside of every theater in the Midwest; I think my mom in particular understood that something about this was giving me a place to fit in).

But mostly I talked to my Rent friends online. We talked about the musical, our favorite songs and actors and characters, but we also talked about our lives. At first I was one of the younger ones on the boards and mailing lists, and in retrospect I'm pretty sure I was a monster, but I felt so empowered to talk to cool adults who were like, IN COLLEGE and stuff. I learned about their lives and what was possible outside of my rural hometown.

As I got older, I grew apart from Rent. I stopped listening to the cast recording so much, then entirely. I got embarrassed about how obsessed I'd been. I knew the general consensus was that Rent was cheesy and overwrought. Ha ha, yes, of course, Mark and Roger should just get jobs. Benny's just trying to follow his dreams of real estate ownership. Ha, right, what even IS a "season of love"?

Then in 2009, my best friend Megan, who I'd met through Rent--who co-ran a Rent website with me, who waited in Rent lines with me, who had simply the stupidest inside jokes in the world with me….died suddenly. I was devastated, obviously, and for a long time after that, Rent was just ruined for me, simply too emotionally overwhelming on every level. Some department store started using "Seasons of Love" in their commercials and it was like a kick in the face every time I heard even a few seconds of it.

In 2012 I took a trip to New York and decided to go see the Off-Broadway production of Rent. I went by myself and wasn't sure what to expect--I knew the staging was different from what I was familiar with. I honestly don't remember a fucking thing about that production except that I cried for pretty much two hours straight, at varying levels of intensity, from the very first opening note through the finale. It was emotionally overwhelming and really just a reboot to my system.

2016 marked the TWENTY YEAR anniversary of Rent, and with it, a new tour. I saw it in 2017 with another dear friend I'd made through Rent fandom. Again: I remember nothing of this experience except crying. Well--and talking to people in the lobby while waiting for lotto to be drawn; other people with very fond memories of having seen Rent years and years ago, people who remembered the message boards and the drama.

Last year, they announced one of the upcoming live TV musicals would be Rent. "That's wild," I thought. Rent was now mainstream enough to be broadcast on network television, like Grease. But hey--I'd watch it.

At the beginning of this year--2019, 10 years (5,256,000 minutes) since Megan died--I saw a posting for an online raffle to win a trip to see the dress rehearsal for Rent Live. I entered it of course, not thinking anything of it.

And then 2 weeks ago I got an apparently legit email--I'd WON this drawing. It didn't seem possible--so many people must have entered, how on earth would I win? (Like: I'm not saying that the ghost/angel of my Rent-obsessed best friend somehow rigged this online contest for me, but I can't prove that she DIDN'T.)

The rules of the contest didn't allow me to publicly announce it, and I was scared to talk about it anyway because I was not fully convinced that it was real. Still, I asked Kait, one of my other best friends--who I also met because of Rent, twenty years ago, and who remains a hugely integral part of my life to this day--if she'd want to be my guest on this trip, proving it turned out to be real.

It was real. We went. I felt very stressed and uncertain about it all, but on Saturday, January 26th we turned up at Fox Studios and they accepted my paperwork and gave us paper wristbands and made us wait in a long line and eventually? They let us sit down on chairs in a big studio, and some actors performed Rent in that studio. It was an amazing experience; there were 1300 other fans in there with us, all so excited to see this show that must have meant something to us--it wasn't easy to get tickets to be there, everyone there wanted to be there. While we were waiting for the show, all around us we heard people reminiscing about seeing it on Broadway, meeting the cast, hating the movie version.

There were changes made to the script and staging--of course we noticed, of course we all of us had the entire full text of the original show preserved in amber in our brains. For the most part, I didn't mind--most of the changes I thought were good, or at least okay. A few annoyed me but mostly...it was Rent! I cried, of course, the minute the lights went up and Mark began his familiar monologue. Eventually I stopped crying and I laughed and screamed and just enjoyed the songs; enough time had passed that I could experience the show in a new way. It felt like coming home.

(Years on Broadway message boards have made me aware of how unprepared I am to actually discuss theatrical performances; I don't know musical or theatrical terms, I can't tell if things are off-key unless it's very drastic. I am overall a very forgiving audience member; I want to like shows and performers and generally I do, though of course sometimes I have critiques. As I type this it's been a day since Rent "Live"--which turned out to mostly actually be the dress rehearsal that I saw, due to Brennin Hunt's injury--and plenty of people have plenty to say about how low energy it was, how so and so couldn't hit the appropriate notes...and I don't know about any of that. I just know that when I was there, watching it, I felt every moment and fell in love with every character, even though yeah they should totally try to get actual jobs or whatever.)

And then--we'd already known, from the internet, from some of our old Rent friends, that the Original Broadway cast was there that night too. We suspected they'd make an appearance for us; surely they wouldn't be there just to observe. And indeed...after the finale, they bounded out on stage and sang a reprise of "Seasons of Love." If that had happened to me when I was 16, I think I might have literally passed out. I'd listened to them on the cast recording so so many times, but of course they'd all left the show by 1999, when I got into Rent. (I've been lucky enough to see original actors in other projects since then, but not Rent.) Seeing them, hearing them...honestly I felt like I had full-on Beatlemania, I was literally shaking. I couldn't believe I was so lucky to see that and hear that and feel that.

And then the next day, I got home from LA in time to watch 2/3 of the show on TV. I livetweeted it and chatted in a group chat with a bunch of my Rent friends, people from all around the country. And that's what Rent is about, really--it's about the power and importance of community, and I'm so grateful to be a part of this one. #CompulsiveBowlers #FriendshipIsThickerThanBlood #NDBT

Anyway that's why I was in LA last weekend.

#dumb stuff i make up #my emotions

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ladytp · 6 years

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My Fannish Year 2018

I have been doing these ‘My Fannish Year’ reviews since 2012 with the exception of 2016 and 2017 when I dropped the ball for some reason – but I am back on it now! These are fun and also great to look back later; just little stops to look back to my fandom year, reflections, as is suitable for this time of the year… (My previous navel-gazings are from, 2015 , 2014 , 2013 and 2012 .

The rest behind the cut for length:

1. Your main fandom of the year: Number of my fandoms has grown, it seems; I still have my old A Song of Ice and Fire and WWE, especially Dean Ambrose, but now my other notable fandoms are also Black Sails and Outlander.

2. Your favourite film this year: ‘The Shape of Water’ – it impressed me immensely.

3. Your favourite book this year: I have read woefully little, I am ashamed to admit…of the little I read, I found ‘The Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson interesting due to its old-fashioned feel.

4. Your favourite album or song this year: ‘Love Me Again’ by John Newman totally blew my socks off.

5. Your favourite TV show this year: ‘The Terror’ and ‘Anne with an E’ (I can say two if I want, it works that way, doesn’t it?)

6. Your favourite LJ community this year: [Unfortunately this question is pretty much outdated by now… replaced by the next question.]

7. Your favourite Tumblr tags this year: “Dean Ambrose”, “Outlander”, “Black Sails” and still the good old “sansan”.

8. Your best new fandom discovery of the year: ‘The Terror’- although right now I’m also sniffing around ‘Anne with an E’.

9. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: Dean Ambrose’s elbow injury that kept him in the sidelines for 9 months… and that ASOIAF’s 6th novel ‘The Winds of Winter’ has still not been released. *sigh*

10. Your TV/movie boyfriend of the year: Dean Ambrose, who else???

11. Your TV/movie girlfriend of the year: Anne Shirley-Cuthbert (from Anne with an E)!

12. Your biggest squee moment of the year: Going to Monday Night Raw live event in Los Angeles, happily coinciding with my business trip there…

13. Your most missed old fandom: Not fandom but platform, LiveJournal – although I know there is no way back and it will never be the same again. I also miss earlier more optimistic days of Game of Thrones fandom, when the TV-series had just started.

14. Your fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to? Can’t say there is one – if I ‘want to’, I’ll just jump right in!

15.Your biggest anticipation of the New Year: I’m sure I have said this every year – but it still is the release of ‘The Winds of Winter’ by George RR Martin. And to hopefully see Dean Ambrose turning face again – his heel arc is not my favourite…

16. Your Writing or Art (if applicable):

16.1 Total Words/Artworks: Approx. 163,000 words.

Most of my writing has been for one fic only, which has really taken all my energy and effort but has been (and still is) an absolute hoot to write!

(December 2017 -) January: ‘In the Quiet of the Night, Candour’ – an Outlander fic about a quiet moment between Jamie Fraser and Lord John in the Fraser’s Ridge (9,256 words)

February – December: ‘This Time, We'll Do Better’ (154,335 words) – and still going…

The rest of these questions all have the same answer with minor variations, as I only had limited writing to choose from… but I list them just the same, in case if you want to use this same template and can respond better.

16.2. Your favourite own work of this year: ‘This Time, We'll Do Better’

16.3. Most fun work chapter to create: Chapter 3 ‘Lady Sansa’ of TTWDB was a riot – that’s where Sansa first finds herself in Joffrey’s court but thinks it is all a big hoax and reacts accordingly, lashing her tongue at Sandor, Joffrey and Cersei!

16.4. Your sexiest work chapter: Very little sexy times so far in my fics…so as a fleeting moment, maybe in Chapter 36 ‘The Pact’ the moment when Gendry submits to Arya to preserve the order in the pack, and Arya bites him...

16.5. Your work chapter with the single sexiest moment/element: As above. Geez, I better start writing more risque stuff and soon!

16.6. Your work chapter that shifted your own perceptions of the characters: Again, oddly enough, it is Gendry in Chapter 28 ‘Wolf Dreams’. I started to see him as his own man, not only an extension or ‘accessory’ to Arya. I realised he had his own dreams, own aspirations and would be capable of driving his own life. Power to Gendry!

16.7. Your hardest work chapter to create: Chapter 29 ‘Lion Defeated’ was hard, as in it tried to describe Jaime’s despair in finding himself paralysed; his seven stages of grief, anger at Brienne and all that – I am still not sure how successful it was, but I tried my best.

17. Best story(ies) you read this year: My fanfic reading this year has been quite varied, between ASOIAF, Black Sails, Outlander and The Terror. Some of the best stories I have found in Black Sails fandom – it has lots of amazing writers with a wonderful command of language, moods and subtlety. To mention a few, ‘Any Port in a Storm’ series about Captain Flint/John Silver by Farasha and ‘The Unquiet Grave’ about Thomas Hamilton & John Silver by Belewitts. From ASOIAF, ‘Who Tells Our Stories’ about Arya Stark/Jaime Lannister yes, really!) by lifeofsnark and ‘and love is not a victory march’ about Ned Stark/Catelyn Tully by SomeEnchantedEve. Just to mention a few!

18. The sexiest story(ies) you read this year: ‘and into what it will be changed’ about Captain Flint/Miranda Hamilton/Thomas Hamilton by sea_changed (foxlives). Sexy and tender threesome.

19. The story with the single sexiest moment you read this year: ‘I felt like I could be made new again’ about Brienne of Tarth/Jaime Lannister by janie_tangerine – sizzling!

20. The story you read this year that shifted your own perceptions of the characters: ‘Who Tells Our Stories’ by lifeofsnark made me realise what an unusual but fascinating pairing Arya and Jaime could be, post canon, when they both are changed; Arya grown harder, Jaime more principled – and both very disillusioned. How fascinating!

21. The best fandom artwork you have seen this year: Mimmunet’s artwork ‘Captain Flint from Black Sails’ – it is absolutely gorgeous!

22. Biggest Disappointment: I Continuing decimation of ASOIAF and sansan due to GoT show influence…!

23. Biggest Surprise: That I found my groove again for writing – I thought my writer’s block had become real and that I wouldn’t find the same inspiration for it as I had done before – but then with TTWDB it all came back to me. A pleasant surprise, for sure!

24. Your fanfic or profic goals for the New Year: To continue and finish TTWDB. Interestingly, when browsing through my earlier ‘My Fannish Year’ entries, I found this entry in this section from 2015: “I also have harboured plans and worked on an outline of a bigger ASOIAF story involving also other characters than sansan. This is the first time I aim to really plan all of it carefully – which may mean that it actually never gets written… *sigh*”. It took a few years, but I guess I did it! :- )

25. I'd like to thank the academy... (Thanks to your betas, frequent commenters/supporters, the people who stayed up with you late...) I have had wonderful interactions with my old and new friends over the year, most in Tumblr, thank you all! Any list is bound to be incomplete but just to mention a few, I would like to especially thank (again…) @asimplylucia @thefeatherofhope , @bluecichlid , @zip00198704 , @thedropletsparkled@hardlyfatal , and a special shout-out to my wonderful and patient beta, @hardlyfatal!

I would like to tag all of you to do this, no matter if you write or do art or neither, if you want to look back into your fandom year. Please do and share!

#My Fannish Year #Black Sails #Outlander #ASOIAF #The Terror #Anne with an E #reflecting

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migleefulmoments · 6 years

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Is Darren’s watch gay?

Today the CC fandom has a theory that Darren wore his PINK and blue watch because it’s a “gay” watch or a symbol of his queerness.... because PINK obviously means gay, right?

The watch has the added advantage of being both pink and blue ...therefore it’s a solid representation of both Chris and Darren -at least according to the CC belief that blue represents Chris and PINK represents Darren, like DUH! For anyone new, the color symbolism is something the CCers have long believed....I mean, that is something normal adults do right? Assign colors to their OTP or even better, to themselves and then actually wear those colors once a year to send a secret “high-five” to those fans who are paying enough attention to “get it”..I mean it’s totes normal, right?

Anonymous asked:

hello love! i hope you’re doing well! i know this doesn’t mean anything but i saw the thumbnail for the interview you linked of d saying he doesn’t know who he came out straight to and he’s wearing a watch with a blue band and pink face and i noticed he’s wearing either the same or a similar watch when rehearsing in lsb! but then his watch changes and i thought it was weird,,, anyway sorry for the ramble!!

ajw720 answered:

Hello nonnie!!!! Excellent observation. That is a watch he has had for years, He used to always wear it, now much less, likely not approved by his team, plus often the watch he wears now is a paid endorsement.

But the pink and blue watch, that is genuine D and what he loves. Add pink is D and Blue is C and those colors have been associated with their relationship since the beginning.

I always smile when he wears that watch. I think it is very special to him.

LSB rehearsal 2019. He clearly looks happy and like his watch is “special to him” and we all know that photos (and screen grabs) are PROOF of Darren’s emotions.

LSB BTS package 2019. He’s MUCH happier here.

George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight 2012

Apparently, Darren hasn’t worn the watch much -not something I have ever paid attention to- but it was spotted on his arm during rehearsals for LSB. It’s clearly not the same watch as the band is teal in the 2012 screen grab and blue in the more recent one.

(I posted the comments out of order so ya know go read the original if you want a more accurate reflection of their thought process).

Sometimes the CC Conspiracy Theorists catch the fact that the items they are matching- don’t actually match....

souly

If I remember correctly, this is not the original watch though. I don’t remember what he said about the original one, but he stopped wearing it for a while. At the first Elsie (or was it the second?), a fan gave him the new watch. There was a post about it back then, but I don’t know if it’s still around.

Anyway, I do believe though that he loves this watch for what it stands for - the original and the new one - so it always makes me smile when I see it!

(Plus, these BTS videos made it obvious that he is wearing the silver one for promotion and prefers the other one in private. And now look at the paps shots and so-called “private outings with friends” again and look at the watch he is wearing there.)

flowersintheattic254

I’m happy that at least he can wear something that’s special to him personally. Even for a short time.

There is always a “no longer available” post to explain CC Confirmed. As for whether it is special to him? Darren has never indicated that the watch is special to him. That is called MAKING UP A STORY. But from this day forward the fandom will believe that this little queer watch is meaningful to Darren.

The watch is a sporty, more causal-and presumably less expensive- than the watch he has been wearing. Wearing a less expensive, more casual watch while exercising isn’t logical CC reasoning, noooooo, logical CC reason is of course that his team WON’T LET HIM wear it. He has to be sneaky when he wants to express his sexuality through accessories. Also, they claim that he is forced to wear a “paid endorsement” watch most of the time..

ajw720

@flowersintheattic254 it has been almost 5 months since the JH promo began and they essentially stripped him of the rings we know mean the world to him (absolutely intentional, M and RR knew precisely what they were doing when they got that campaign, it was about much more than a free trip to Bali). So I agree, it is good to see him supplement an accessory here and there that is actually meaningful to him. I cannot wait until he is free to just be himself.

Sooooo, I’m not entirely sure why she brought up “JH promo” here, but I read it to mean that the watch that he normally wears is promotion for John Hardy. They have obsessively raged about the John Hardy jewelry since his trip to Bali in September. Yes, I am sure that was a promotional trip. Who cares? He got to spend a week in Bali and all he and Mia had to do was wear some jewelry. Darren seems to enjoy the designs as he has worn them quit a bit since then- UNTAGGED. I honestly never pay attention to these things but the CCers always comment. The thing is, something is only “promotion” on social media if it is tagged. Wearing an untagged ring or bracelet isn’t in anyway promoting the item. Only the most diehard, rage-filled fans recognize the untagged John Hardy pieces. The idea of promotion isn’t simply to get free stuff and wear it on social media, it’s to drive traffic to the John Hardy website and them to get people to actually purchase the pieces. Wearing them untagged doesn’t serve this goal.

But back to the watch...is Darren wearing an (untagged) John Hardy watch as per his endorsement deal?

Uh, NO. There are no John Hardy Watches. If he is wearing a promotional watch for a different brand-he really sucks at it.

Some thoughts on other CC comments:

...they essentially stripped him of the rings we know mean the world to him (absolutely intentional, M and RR knew precisely what they were doing when they got that campaign, it was about much more than a free trip to Bali). So I agree, it is good to see him supplement an accessory here and there that is actually meaningful to him. I cannot wait until he is free to just be himself.

So let’s analyze the facts:

Chris gave him ring(s)? The CCers have long claimed that Chris gave Darren a ring, a ring he often- but not always-wears on his right hand. Over the years, there are I believe, 5 different rings that Darren has worn and all were attributed to Chris until the John Hardy rings were added in September. Why were they attributed to Chris? Literally NO reason whatsoever other than their fantasy. These same people have raged over their claim that Mia has sported 5 different engagement rings in the last year. The rings all look to me like the same diamond ring with other rings added when the mood struck her. CC Mia is horrible for caring so little about her Engagement Ring that she would wear 5 different rings, but Chris is romantic AF for giving Darren 5 rings.

The rings are meaningful to Darren? Darren has NEVER said the rings hold any meaning for him or who they are from that I am aware of. He doesn’t wear them consistently. Seems to me that they are fashion accessories and nothing more. He’s worn the John Hardy’s rings quite a bit since September. Clearly, the CC fandom couldn’t claim the John Hardy rings are from Chris, so they fell back on their favorite excuse: his team “forced” him to wear the rings. I’m never sure exactly how one “forces” another adult to do something. I’ve been married for 24 years, if someone can tell me how to “force” him to do my bidding, I would love it.

One final CC comment on this topic- The Impossible Dream comment

bjpb08

Concur @ajw720. The thing is D has always found a way to fight back, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. We have seen it on the frontline, we do not see behind the camera or in the soecifics of his life. Sometimes I am sure he has sat it out, waiting. D has said too many times he is private, social media is not his way of communicating. He seems to pick whatever means he is afforded. Glimpses that we see, I love…it reminds me he is fighting and still remains the human being I so love and support. He is Dar/ren Eve/rett Cri/ss first and formost a son, brother, uncle, cousin, but first and formost a partner to one Chr/is Col/fer. He will do what he needs to do for those he loves. And that includes fighting a foe that we will never know the depth of.

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march

Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lay peaceful and calm

When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To fight the unbeatable foe

To reach the unreachable star

Songwriters: Joe Darion / Mitchell Leigh

I believe D would not agree. This song always comes back to haunt me in relationship to D. He lives it, he breathes it, he feels it on a daily bases. Soon he will find he will reach the reachable star.

D has always found a way to fight back, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly? Yes, because the CC fandom literally fabricated all of these things he did to “fight back”. The things are “subtle” because the fandom made them up...they are overt because they made them up. As long as CCers continue to make up claims about what he is doing and how it represents a ‘fight”, Darren will continue to “fight” back in ways that are asinine. He will continue to hide deep In the closet while sending the CC fandom subtle messages of his “truth”. He will continue to walk the red carpet with Mia and take her to awards shows where he says nice things about her. He will continue to be a straight bro, to wear John Hardy jewelry and play piano at Tramp Stamp Granny’s BECAUSE THAT IS WHO HE IS. The CC fandom will continue to claim that everything he does that we see and everything he says that we hear- is all fake or forced upon him by this team while he lives a secret queer life with his husband Chris Colfer. A life we cannot see or hear BECAUSE IT ISN’T REAL, it’s pure CC fantasy. And his story will continue to be something only they are paying enough attention to see it because they are the ones writing it.

D has said too many times he is private, social media is not his way of communicating. He seems to pick whatever means he is afforded. This is literally an argument for why he isn’t secretly communicating with the CC fandom via social media.

Isn’t it convenient that “he seems to pick whatever means we fabricate he is afforded”? He will always “conveniently” do whatever fits the CC fantasy...that is how it works when you are writing the fanfiction as you go.

Is Darren’s life The Impossible Dream? The CC fantasy about love conquering all and CrissColfer being “a love for the ages” is how tweens and young teens believe love works. It is fodder for fanfiction and the best rom-coms, Twilight and Disney Princess-esque romance novels, but it isn’t real life. Real life is messy and hard. Love rarely survives even the most mundane stressors of life, it would never survive

9 years of hiding from the world while the spotlight is focused directly on it

9 years of being apart and pretending to love someone else

9 years of overt lying about Darren’s sexuality and his life

9 years of traveling with someone else and sharing his life with Mia with the world

9 years of mundane real-life stressors while hiding

Add on Chris’s mom’s death, his dad’s remarriage, his sister’s illness, Chuck’s divorce, and all of the things we don’t know about

Love doesn’t save people from life’s difficult moments. Love certainly doesn’t excuse deception and lies. Darren isn’t gay because he wears a PINK and blue watch.

#CC #CCEr #CCerrs #CC fanom #CC blog #CC family #CrissColfer #Darren Criss #chris colfer #gay watch #fanfiction #CC fanon #CC fandom #Pink isn't gay #Pink watches aren't gay

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astreetcarnamedwynn · 6 years

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ask response: fic questions

This was fun! Thank you, @goldensillydragon, for submitting the ask and for giving me the opportunity to take sweet trip down memory lane. I was able to answer them quicker than I anticipated. If anyone else would like my rambles about any fic I’ve written, just submit an ask/message with a fic title. I’ll answer some or all of the 15 questions. :D

goldensillydragon: Thank you, and don’t worry, take all the time you need. The fic is “Remembrance Of Things Past”, because it owns my heart and it’s a thing of beauty (and, frankly, to me it has become the standard I compare all Blackfrost fics to!).

Feel free to add anything you may want about it, just reading your thoughts on it will be a pleasure, you cannot imagine how much I love that fic!

Fic Links: Here on AO3 or here on FF.net

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I am a fandom old. I first started writing fic in 2001. I wrote steadily from 2001 to early 2007, and then I stopped for 5 years, largely due to work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first fandom I ever wrote for, I loved it and Firefly to bits, so I was super excited at Joss Whedon directing a big budget movie (oh how time changes perspective). I’d never read an Avengers comic before seeing the movie (I was an X-Men gal growing up). I can’t even remember at this point if I’d seen any of the Marvel movies prior to Avengers. I just know I came out of my first viewing of it in 2012 with a restored fannish heart. I needed it too. That year was hell for me personally, and writing Avengers fic was an escape.

I’d come out of Avengers, like many, impressed by Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. I was especially intrigued by his scenes with Natasha, how both of them played around with perception (Loki with his illusions, Natasha with people’s conceptions of herself), so the first Avengers fic I wrote was a short one-shot called “The Animal Inside” in which Loki visits Natasha to talk with her about the animal/beast inside and redemption:

Loki holds her gaze and says, “My sentencing happens today. Odin will…render his judgment against me. I believe even your society grants last requests to the condemned.”

Natasha holds her breath, unsettled at the confession.

“How did you do it?” he asks. “How did you stop being who you were and become who you are? Barton told me about your past. The red in your ledger. How did you…stop?”

I continued it in a slightly longer one-shot called “The Dog Days are Over” in which Loki has somehow found his way to Earth, rather than having been executed by Odin for his crimes, and Natasha encounters him on a mission. She tracks him down to understand why.

“Why aren’t you dead?”

He smirks. “Because Odin loves sadism almost more than his missing eye.”

And then came the beast. “Remembrance of Things Past.” In its current and unfortunately permanent incomplete form, it clocks in at over 200,000 words in nearly 50 chapters. I worked on it for close to 2 years. From what I remember, I wanted to challenge myself to find a way to write a Loki-Natasha romance that seemed plausible, that especially didn’t compromise her character in significant ways. What I settled on was Loki crossing Dr. Doom (a villain who, in the comics, was powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with him), and Odin directly asking Natasha to help Loki as he knows about the conversation they have in “The Dog Days are Over” through Heimdall. To save Loki, Natasha would have to delve back into her past, as he would have to deal with his past sins to try to atone.

Hence the title: “Remembrance of Things Past”

2: What scene did you first put down?

Probably the first scenes, bridging the time from “Dog Days” to Odin asking Natasha for help. I likely planned a good chunk of the first set of chapters in advance, but I would have started at the start.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

It’s been so long since I’ve worked on this, and so long since I’ve read it, that it’s hard to choose a favorite with any certainty. Here are some that I liked enough to highlight when posting and that stick out to me now making this:

In one of the rooms, she forgets which they are so numerous, Natasha finds Loki regarding the carved and painted ceiling. The reflected light shines golden on the room and on him. She wonders how he ever successfully lied or deceived, his eyes convey so much. His gaze now is elegiac, a smooth sky covering a seething sea of rage and regret.

On the smooth expanse of his life in Asgard, Loki had always felt the scratch, the spot that mars, the place where the pieces of himself should come together and fit, but instead they grated, they set his teeth on edge, and he lived in Paradise as a man tormented by a shadow from the corner of his eye, glimpsed only but never seen.

Odin looks once more at Loki and Thor, then he turns and finds Frigga. As they regard one another, a goodbye too inadequate for millennia together, the body of Odin Allfather begins to rupture, the energy within pouring forth, burning, burning, burning his body to ash. He looks up at the stars beginning to shine in the night sky, and Loki may not be able to stop him, he may not be able to save him, but he can do this. He closes his eyes and pictures the view from the end of the world in Asgard, the deep ebony of space, the graceful curve of the distant worlds, the stars as they flare and beam golden light upon the realm, and he projects the image for his father to see. He sees Odin smile as he gazes upon the vista, then the energy takes hold and his body disperses, disappearing amongst the stars.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

“Isn’t it funny the way the worlds turn and the fates fall?”

I ended up liking it so much it became the summary/tag line for the fic overall.

5: What part was hardest to write?

The last major sequence, an epic fight on the Helicarrier that spanned 5 chapters- collectively known as “Blow Up the Outside World.” There were SO MANY different threads to interweave, SO MANY characters to keep track of and get into position for the final outcome to happen. In the first chapter alone, Loki, Maria Hill, Natasha, Bruce, and Sif all have point of view sections. The next chapter, Thor, Frigga, and Darcy on top of a few repeats. Jane, Tony, Clint, Steve in the next few.

SO. MANY. CHARACTERS.

But I made it work. It was hard. I remember having charts planning out what was happening where on the Helicarrier so events could sync up correctly. It was brutal and satisfying when it all came together.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

It got me writing again, and in a serious way. It will always have a special place in my heart for that reason alone.

7: Where did the title come from?

It’s a riff off of the Proust novel Remembrance of Things Past, which is one of the few huge epics I haven’t read.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Not that I can remember.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Not of the fic overall, but of individual scenes and plotlines. I can’t remember any specifics. I’m fairly sure I didn’t intend to write Steve-Sif as a romantic pairing until story events necessitated them interacting and then I fell in love with their interactions.

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

See the response to #1. :)

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I think I did a great job with the action sequences. I think I developed Natasha and Loki’s relationship in an interesting way, in a way that respected both characters and felt plausible. I like a lot of the narration and weaving the various plot threads together, especially in the last big action sequence.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

It’s unfinished. Unfortunately that’s how it will have to stay. My fic writing interests have strayed from Marvel, and I’m currently trying to finish another epic fic beast.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story?

So many songs. I don’t have my Blackfrost mixes on my iTunes anymore, but I know I listened to a lot of Olafur Arnalds. “Heart’s a Mess” by Gotye. “The Difference Between Us” by The Dead Weather. “Cosmic Love” by Florence + the Machine.

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Not really. I hope they enjoyed reading it!

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

To not indulge in EVERYTHING I want to write in a story. I doomed myself when I let the POV of the story expand from Natasha to Loki and then to other characters. Don’t get me wrong. I love, love, love so much of what I wrote, but the story grew to something I couldn’t sustain, especially when Cap 2 came out and my brain was all Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. So with “That Which You Seek” and “And the Wounded Sing,” my two big Bucky-Darcy stories, I kept the POVs focused solely on them- Darcy in the first, Bucky in the second. The same with my Yuri on Ice story “Sixty Impossible Things.” There are times I’d love to delve into Viktor’s or Yuri’s POV, but I keep the focus on Yuuri. This has helped. I finished the two Bucky-Darcy stories, and I’ve gotten back to writing “Sixty Impossible Things.”

#goldensillydragon #fic by wynn #ask #fic #blackfrost #long post

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worldoflis · 3 years

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Fic Writer Tag

I wasn't tagged by name but @lilyvandersteen said any Klaine writer who felt like it could do it, and I'm feeling chatty, so there :)

How many works do you have on AO3?

I have published 7 on AO3, one of which is a collection of drabbles for the Summer Event that I still need to complete. The others are chapter fics, and are finished. I got one more chapter fic called 'Brothers' which was my first klaine fic that should still be moved to AO3 from FF.net, but I'm a little scared of rereading that, and it also feels a little weird posting a fic from 2012 in 2021 (though I did see the other day you can adjust the publishing date, so maybe I'll get to it still).

What’s your total AO3 word count?

271,452

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

I've only ever written for Glee (I think...) - sometimes I think of branching out but there's just never any cast or pairing that fuels me enough to write. Or maybe I'm just conservative :D. So only Glee, and mostly Klaine and Kurtbastian.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Considering I only have 7, this is basically everything, but there you go :D

California Boys This is a surfer!Sebastian story I just finished, and I... never realised it was actually my most popular story until looking it up just now. It's mostly just a fun happy-go-lucky story with some angst and pining because that's good for you!

Dancing in Moonlight Always funny if a sequel has more kudos than the first part in the series, but there you go! This is another Kurtbastian story, with an HIV+ Sebastian, trying to navigate their relationship as a sero+/sero- couple, when Sebastian's past comes back to haunt them. I wrote it for a Big Bang, and I rushed the epilogue because of the deadline, and I got A LOT of comments on it, not all good. And while I know I had a lot of fun writing it, and I worked very hard on all the parallels, I still have very mixed feelings about this fic.

The Danger inside of Me Another sequel that has more kudos than the first installment! This is a Klaine fic (the only one in the list, I realize now), with HIV+!Blaine. I know, it was a thing, I didn't intend for it to happen but there you go. As with DIM, it's a learning-to-navigate-the-relationship-with-HIV kind of fic.

Dream About Us Predecessor to DIM! Designer!Kurt and model!Sebastian meet and sparks fly. However, Sebastian has a secret... It's a 20k fic and I wrote this in a week or so - which is absolutely insane for me because I'm a very slow writer usually. I wasn't very productive at work that week, I have to admit...

I'll see you around, my love This is a companion piece to DIM, that I wrote to sort of address, in-universe, some of the comments I got on the epilogue.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I used to, and I used to love it - and I do try to reply to new comments on new fic. But I'm an anxious person, and after the mixed feedback on DIM I have gotten very weary of negative comments, so for a long while I didn't, simply because I was too scared to even read them. And now I feel weird replying to new comments, when I haven't replied to the old comments, because what if the old commenters come back and see I replied on a new comment, but not on their old one?

But I spent half an hour today going through the comments on CB and replying to all of them, even the old ones, and it made me happy, so maybe I'll get inspired :)

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

My endings are happy. My fics can get angsty always contain angst to some extent (esp. the Danger!verse ones), but my endings shall be happy!

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

No crossovers as of yet, no.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Well, as I said, the DIM epilogue has received mixed reviews, and I was very much not prepared for that. But other than that I've mostly gotten just very lovely and encouraging comments!

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I've written multiple m/m scenes. I don't like it too much, I tend to opt for a fade-to-black. But for TDIOM for example (with HIV+!Blaine), their having sex was just too important - it was a huge step so it had to be there and it had to be explicit. Other times inspiration strikes and I let it happen - but always in context of a longer fic, I'll never write PWP, it's just not my thing.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I... don't think so?

Have you ever had a fic translated?

If I have, they didn't tell me. I got fanart a few times though!!!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I don't think that would work - I'm a little too headstrong about what I want and how. I already drive my beta crazy with how hard it is for me to listen to her, let alone an actual co-writer :D.

What’s your all time favourite ship?

Klaine has always been my OTP, though unfortunately it's lost a bit of its appeal over the years. But dynamic-wise, I think Kurtbastian is probably a little closer to my heart.

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

The only things I currently have unfinished are two advent challenges and this year's summer challenge... I'd like to finish them, but it's sort of weird? Like the moment has passed? But who knows, CB also took me seven years so there :)

What are your writing strengths?

I don't know. I asked my beta, she also doesn't know. :D (we're a little useless like that) I got a compliment today about my characterization, but I'm not sure - I like to think I'm good at dialogues, though?

What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m slow. Gods, I'm SO slow. And because it takes so much effort to get the words out, I'm always very reluctant to throw out stuff I wrote before, and I might try to change an entire outline just to be able to fit in that one scene that doesn't make sense anymore for whatever reason, but also it's a good scene so I want it in there!

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

It can add flavor to your writing, but like in cooking, you shouldn't overuse your spices. There's definitely ways to make it work - even if sometimes it fails hard. I would definitely recommend working with someone who is at least B1 in the language though :D

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Glee! (though technically it was for Dalton, itself a Glee fanfic, so I don't know how that works)

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

That's a very hard question, and not just because most of my fic was written 7+ years ago, and I haven't reread them since :D. I loved writing Dream About Us because I was on such a high. I'm usually so slow writing but that fic came POURING out. Dancing In Moonlight was a very mathematical fic, almost, because it switches back and forth between present day and past day between chapters, with each chapter starting with the last sentence of the previous chapters - it required a lot of puzzling to get the parallels just right and I'm very proud of it. Plus I wrote an OC that was very well received. And then for the Danger!verse I got a lot of help from my friend who was an HIV-nurse at the time - but I first had to explain what fanfic is and why I needed all those details and that was a trip and a half :D.

So yeah. All of them :D

I’m tagging anyone because it hardly seems fair, but if anyone wants to continue my tradition of doing this one without being tagged, please tag me so I get to see it!

#lis is a writer #this is me

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veliseraptor · 7 years

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Did this one last year, and I figured I’d go ahead and do it again, because I love aggregate memes so much.

2017 Fanfiction Round-Up

Total Year-Long Wordcount: Okay so. I actually have an approximate near-exact number for this, though it includes some original fiction and some nonfiction, but as I actually put in the work for the full year of recording daily wordcount...

The total number of words I wrote between 1/1/16-12/31/17 was: 542,613.

so there’s that.

This year I wrote and posted: There 48 works on AO3 that were updated in 2017 (though some of those are multichapter) and there are 125 posts from this year in my fic tag, so I’m going to go with somewhere on the order of...um, maybe just over 100 including counting individual chapters of things?

Once again, this meme makes me feel like I’m kind of insane.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I always feel like I’m surprised by how much I actually did write, because...idk, it doesn’t feel like that much most of the time when I’m doing it? But then I look back and like. I wrote somewhere between the word count of the entirety of Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. That actually is kind of a lot.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Hmmm. I did not expect to trip and fall headfirst into Loki/Grandmaster as a pairing but, as I have described, I really should have expected that. Barring that...it was an unexpected delight to write some Wheel of Time fic, even if I’ve been totally spoiled by writing for big fandoms.

Other than that, I feel like my fic this year was pretty par for the course for my usual.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? This is hard, but ultimately I think I might have to go with Mending. I felt like...idk, it’s very close to my heart, and I felt like I really did a lot of what I wanted to with it.

But I also ended up feeling really proud of we’re not the only ones - it was a really fun outsider POV to write, and involved getting to explore some new character dynamics in an old ‘verse.

And then there’s Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains, which has also been a complete and utter pleasure.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Man...I’m not sure that I did. Other than the fact that I wrote sounding fic (finally) which is a kink I’ve always liked but never written. That was new and exciting, and turned out really well, actually. Other than that...I don’t know, it doesn’t really feel like a risk per se but I do feel like I embraced more this year just writing all the tropes I love and am periodically ashamed of, because you know what, why not.

From my past year of writing, what was….

My most popular story of this year: By kudos, still Life in Reverse, by far. After that, as far as stories written just this year: Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains, and then the ship at the end of the universe.

The surprise for me is that the next one is The Breaking Light, which I really would not expect.

Most fun story to write: It feels weird to call it “fun” but oddly enough all the glamour and the trauma basically spilled out of me in one go.

Story with the single sexiest moment: I feel like the entirety of that spark of black that I seem to love was a sexiest moment for me.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: This one was so much easier last year when I wrote The Vivisection Mambo which is still probably the creepiest, darkest story I’ve ever written! This year...hmm.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I feel like writing both Halfway House and that spark of black that I seem to love both gave me new perspectives on characters - Steve for both, and also Bucky and Sam in Halfway House.

Hardest story to write: I feel like this one has to go to Privation, which took me, what, three years to finish?

Biggest Disappointment: I’m definitely disappointed in certain segments of fandom for their choice of response for certain methods of writing certain pairings.

Here’s looking at you, rude anons.

Also disappointed that I didn’t make more progress on Life in Reverse this year. I was really hoping to get further than I did.

Biggest Surprise: The response to Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains and how positive it was. I was not expecting that story to get much of a response, but it really has, which delights me - it’s been a joy to write and I’ve been so excited by how much other people seem to be enjoying it, since it’s basically just a lot of talking and feelings, really.

Which I guess is kind of my specialty? But...still.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Maybe one hand on my throat, and one on your heart? It’s one of the most self-indulgent things I’ve written, possibly ever. Which is telling in a lot of ways about what I like.

But also probably...hm. All of my Loki/Grandmaster fics say a lot about me and what I like.

This one was easier last year, too. Maybe Mending/Reweaving, both of those are very...personal in weird ways.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

Apparently the new slogan that they should be operating under was “if something falls out of the sky, call the Avengers.” (look, behind you without a sound)

Loki was executed in a chamber hidden deep within the Raft prison. (the first part of the everything sucks AU)

If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend the dark was a choice. (Boxed In)

On Friday, May 4th, 2012, an alien came to Earth and warned of an invasion that would follow unless they listened very, very closely. (Ghosts That We Knew)

One of the things Loki had learned very quickly about survival in recent years was the necessity of compartmentalization. If something could not be changed, and could not be dealt with, then it had to be pushed aside and locked away to be dealt with later. Prioritize. Focus on the immediate necessities. Everything else could wait until later. Or, preferably, never. (all the glamour and the trauma)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

The city falls, and Idril’s eyes blaze with hatred, and there is blood in his eyes, and he swears he almost remembers this, almost dreamed it once. Soon he is going to wake up, in shadows under the trees, and he will be young again, and whole. (Seven Years)

No one, Loki had realized, broke all at once. You broke in stages, in bits and pieces, giving a little at a time until you looked at yourself and realized the pathetic scraps that were left, until you saw what was at the core and were sick at the knowing. (between the essence and the descent)

Nothing grows from anger, her mother had said once, before she died (was killed, left her, was murdered). Wanda thought she was wrong. Something was growing from hers. (object impermanence)

Loki lay awake through the night, staring upwards, trying to still his mind to no avail. There was a scream locked behind his teeth that he could not unleash. (untitled)

Loki’s eyes drifted mostly closed. “You cannot die,” he said. “That is your curse. And mine. We live and keep living, beyond endurance, beyond reason.” (a lane to the land of the dead)

How long, he wondered, had Loki been convinced of this? Further back than when he’d found out the truth about his heritage, Steve thought, or even Thor’s coronation. It was a wound so old Loki didn’t even notice the scar. (we can see the future (and the dreams it’s made of))

He didn’t know how to explain to Thor how it was to be in a situation where you knew that your refusal would have no meaning; that the only power you had was in choosing how to assent. (all the glamour and the trauma)

He loved Thor. He’d always loved Thor. Desperately, hopelessly, fatally. (farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear)

“Don’t be coy, Captain. There is so much anger burning in you. I can feel it. That violence seething just beneath the surface. It terrifies you, doesn’t it? So you hold it down and push it away. Stop fighting it. Embrace it.” He cocked his head to the side. “I am offering you an exorcism.” (that spark of black that I seem to love)

But maybe there was something to be said for standing, even if it was standing still. (the mercy covering me)

“You see yourself as trapped, Loki. Cornered. But there are doors in front of you, if you will choose to take them. I could choose for you, or your mother could. Your brother would like to drag you through. But whatever you choose now, it must be yours.” (Mending)

“Everything is eternal, and nothing is. Bonds wither and decay. I-” He shook his head, scowling. “This is what your lover and I argue about. Or one of the things. He doesn’t debate well.” (post war blues)

Thor’s smile made Loki want to smile back. He settled back down, and if it weren’t for - well, everything, it might almost have been one of their old rooms, back in Asgard, the two of them bandying words back and forth. But Thor had an eyepatch, the room was small and shabby, Asgard was ashes and so was the innocent purity of their brotherhood. (the ship at the end of the universe)

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

I would love to have the scene illustrated from one hand on my throat, and one on your heart where Steve finds Loki, either just looking at him bent backwards and chained up suffering or where he’s trying to shake Loki out of the memory with Thanos.

Also anything from the Tapestries series, especially the scene at the end of Mending with Loki and Odin.

But honestly, like. Anything.

Fic-writing goals for 2018:

last year I wrote down “finishing ‘we’re not friends, we’re strangers with memories’” and I did that so this year I’m going to say “finish Life in Reverse”

get better at replying to peoples’ comments

finish the RTC: Ragnarok fic before Infinity War comes out

finish the Doctrine of Labyrinths and Merlin fics I’ve been sitting on forever

#confessions of a frustrated writer #meme #fanfiction round up

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