#all while trying to make the ship more palatable to those who dislike it from the getgo bc they don't have enough brain mass-

[cherrymoonvol6]

.

[eyetheguard]

12. do you ship any rarepair? 19. is there a ship you used to dislike, but now you like? 21. what’s something that immediately turns you off from shipping with someone?

do you ship any rarepair?

I don't have many npc/npc ships and the one I do like has a small following I suppose, but for wol/npc perhaps wol/moren?? I've seen two other people who also ship it and that's it ;-; Moren enjoyers where are you??

19. is there a ship you used to dislike, but now you like?

No, not really! There's a character I don't care to ship my wol with but I've never minded seeing stuff about other wols with them. Any of the ships I don't like it's mostly because I don't like the character(s) on their own/their personality, not because of the ship aspect.

21. what’s something that immediately turns you off from shipping with someone?

There are a few things, but I'll stick to the one that matters. The most important no-no is othering, and it goes for pretty much all interactions not just shipping. Milo is who he is and I feel the interactions he has with others should be what makes him special - not how he looks, or dresses, or even his work. I don't care for hearing that he's the "exception" to someone's preferences, or even implications that he should feel special that someone is giving him the time of day because [insert aspect about him] would normally make him lesser in their eyes. It's weird and uncomfortable, and doesn't go over well with me as the writer nor him as a character - he has enough self-respect to be wary of people who do that and it sours interactions very quickly.

Milo is a cisgendered, gender non-conforming, bisexual/pansexual male of assumed Wildwood heritage. While that last thing is quite a bit more complicated, the rest of those things don't change, and I'm not keen on him being put in little boxes to be more palatable to someone else's idea of him as opposed to my own. Just like with real people, I try my best to make him multifaceted - he can be many things at the same time, keep some things to himself, and play up other things. As the writer, I don't mind laying it all out on the table for communication purposes and letting it unfold in an actual rp setting, so I hope that makes it easier to understand.

I think I said in another ask about what needs to be kept in mind when writing about Milo that him not speaking often is the most difficult part, and it's because it can leave a lot of room for assumptions that I then have to figure out how to correct without straying from his characterization. Communicating beforehand definitely makes things easier. I promise I don't bite! I just want to make sure I'm presenting him the way that I intended and don't leave responses wanting as much as possible, and this is the baseline for that.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Hi, I'm working on a SPN fanfic right now and I was hoping I could get some character ideas from you. It's a destiel fanfic-I know you don't ship them anymore but I'm kind of stuck on what to do with John? I want him in the story because I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the way he plays Dean but I also don't want to write him in a repetitive way, I want to do the character justice and not make him all cringe. Got any ideas?

Hi! Yes, I'd be more than happy to give you some advice.

To me, John Winchester is such a fun character to write, full of angst ripe for the picking with Sam and Dean, ya know? And Jeffrey does such a good job bringing the character to life, I just hate reading fics where the the writers just make him the cringey, abusive, alcoholic, homophobic father, the obstacle needed to overcome for Destiel (or whatever ship) to truly be together, you know? I'm not saying that we shouldn't use the abusive parent trope in coming out stories because obviously those family dynamics exist in real life so of course many who have suffered through that trauma want to write about it to work through it and I do not begrudge them at all for that. But, the trope is overplayed and typically there isn't a whole lot of nuance to it so its kind of boring to read about all of the time, and when something gets boring, it gets cringey.

So my advice if this story you're writing is going to have some sort of coming out story feat. John Winchester aka Abusive/Homophobic Father of the Year, then try to add a little bit more nuance to it to give it a freshness so it doesn't feel so overplayed to your readers. No one likes carboard cut outs of characters, they want characters not caricatures (at least that's I want but you know depending on your audience, maybe they're ok with caricatures as long as they get their fanservice). So definitely, if you can, try and dive a little more deeply into the psyche of John Winchester. Really analyze his emotions, his motivations, his reasonings for why he does the things he does. If he's gonna be abusive and homophobic, think about why is he really those things? Is he abusive because he can't look at his kids because they remind him of Mary? Is this his own way of protecting them? Is he homophobic because he's a product of his time? Or is there a deeper reason behind it? Is it a means of protecting his sons from the harshness and brutality of living that life? Because while it is freeing and liberating to come out and truly be able to be yourself, sadly, the world is filled with bigots that won't see it that way, that are threatened by it and will enact violence because of their bigotry.

Me personally, if I were to ever write for John Winchester, I'd choose to stay away from the abusive, alcoholic, homophobic angle that so much of the fandom likes to depict him as. Like I said before, its overdone, boring, and cringey. And truth be told, I've never jumped on the band wagon of hating John Winchester. Honestly, when I rewatch Season 1, the episodes featuring him are always so enjoyable to me because he's so interesting. Sure, he's terrible for his sons, but digging into his motivations and how he thinks, in his own twisted mind, he means well and he's genuinely thinking that these means are what's going to keep his boys safe. So I don't know, if I were to write a coming out story whether it be destiel or sastiel, I'd kind of like to depict John as being supportive of his son coming out because there is an aspect of his personality there that does treasure his boys. Sure, it doesn't negate that he's a terrible father who has treated his children abysmally but everything that he's done in the show, it's never screamed at me that he's homophobic. I'm sure some Dean Winchester stans will come at me, get up on their soap box and try to tell me that we can gather that John Winchester was homophobic because of Dean's own homophobia and repressed feelings towards men, how he womanizes and fetishizes women, etc. He learned it from John. Or maybe, just maybe, John Winchester was not around a whole lot and Dean watched a lot of macho cop shows and things of that nature whilst spending endless hours cooped up in a hotel room. Or Dean Winchester actually is straight, I know horror of horrors for me to suggest something like that and I'm not really here to make an argument on that. If you want to yell at me and tell me all of the reasons why Dean Winchester isn't straight, don't bother because I don't care. SPN is done and over with and we all now have the freedom to characterize Dean however the fuck we want and we need to stop getting into such heated arguments about this. If you see Dean has a repressed homosexual, great I totally see how you would see that so you should write about it, I don't have a problem with it. But I also don't have a problem with him being characterized as straight either. I have written Dean as straight before and I've also written him as LGBT as well. I'm not more partial to any reading of his sexuality really, he's never been a favorite character of mine, most of the time I have to really fight my own dislike of him to even find him palatable. If I think of a story and I want to include him in said story, I'll characterize him in whichever way befits the story I'm writing. But the point is, in regards to John Winchester, I kind of went on a tangent there, but what I'm essentially getting at is John can be abusive, he can be alcoholic, but I would also find it interesting if amongst those things he was supportive of his sons' sexuality or at the very least apathetic to it.

But anyway, those are my thoughts/advice. Hopefully it helps and good luck on your story. If you post it on Tumblr, be sure to tag me, I'd love to read it.

[sage-nebula]

why didn't you like steven universe future? not mad, just wondering

I didn’t like it for … quite a few reasons. Fair warning that this is probably going to be long, it’s going to contain spoilers for Future, and those who really liked Future for whatever reason are probably not going to agree with me. And that’s fine! But I do ask that if you disagree that you don’t try to start a fight over it. That would be a waste of everyone’s time, including yours, because I’m going to be thirty in twelve days and so I really don’t have the time or energy to get into heated fights with people over children’s cartoons anymore. I’m well past that stage of my life. (Also keep in mind that while I’m very critical of Future, I really like the original series, which is why I’m critical of Future. So if there’s any confusion, let me clear it up now: I am not in the “SU crit” crowd.)

So with that said …

My first issue with Future is with its format, and particularly the issues that it had with character balance. In the original show, while there were obviously some characters who were relegated to side character status and thus didn’t get as much attention as other characters did (e.g. Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, Lars, et cetera), we still had a sensible mix of characters in each episode, there not only to contribute to the plot, but also to bounce off each other. If it was a townie episode, you’d probably see a good mix of human characters interacting with Steven. If it was a Crystal Gems episode, in most cases all of the gems would show up at some point or another, and so on. Characters who had established relationships with each other often showed up with and interacted with each other (e.g. Lapis and Peridot, however you want to interpret their relationship). It felt natural for this to happen. It made sense for all the characters involved for everyone to get focus, for the episodes to not be centered on One Character and One Character Only.

And Future … didn’t do that.

Particularly notable and bad in the latter half of Future, Future’s episodes tended to focus on Steven + One Other Character. “Guidance” was Amethyst’s episode, so Amethyst was the only person Steven interacted with at length. “Volleyball” was Pearl’s episode, so Pearl (and Pink Pearl) was the only character Steven acted with at length, and so on. In a particularly egregious example, and the one that really made me notice the problem, “In Dreams” was Peridot’s episode, and so Lapis was not seen nor mentioned despite loving Camp Pining Hearts so much that she rewatched all the seasons with Peridot, made a meep morp specifically due to her love for the show (e.g. she made fanart!), and in the comics has an entire issue where she and Peridot not only put on a Camp Pining Hearts play, but where Lapis shows that she’s memorized the show’s dialogue and even does impressions for Peridot. Yet although Lapis is such a passionate and devoted fan of the show—although their mutual love for the show was something that helped Lapis and Peridot bond—she apparently has no interest in watching the reboot. Or if she does, we don’t get to hear about it, because again, she isn’t mentioned at all because “In Dreams” was meant to be Peridot’s episode.

Now, a disclaimer: I do ship Lapidot. I think I’ve made that pretty clear before. But the fact that I ship Lapidot isn’t why I’m annoyed that “In Dreams” was only allowed to have one (1) character besides Steven, and thus Lapis was excluded. I’m annoyed because it makes zero sense given things about Lapis’ character that were established in the previous series and supplementary materials. Lapis loves Camp Pining Hearts. Therefore, Lapis should at least have an opinion on the reboot, even if it’s only Peridot saying that Lapis wants a full report on the reboot to know whether it’s worth watching or not. The fact that she isn’t mentioned at all distracted me, because I spent the episode wondering why she wasn’t being included in a watch party for a show she loved so much she made fanart for it and memorized the dialogue to impersonate the characters.

And as I said, this is far from the only episode where this happens. Each non-Steven character seemed to get one, and only one, episode where they were Steven’s Plus One, and therefore were either inexplicably missing from other episodes, or only had brief cameos at best. It took until episode 12, “Bismuth Casual”, for Connie to have an appearance for more than a few seconds, and even then, she was mostly only there to show how awkward Steven was interacting with humans (since apparently all those townie eps we sat through in the original series meant nothing in the end), because “Bismuth Casual” was Bismuth’s episode, and thus the only one she had a real appearance in. In “Together Forever”, we were given a half-assed excuse for why Garnet didn’t stop Steven from getting his heart broken (”you would have done it anyway”) because a.) having Garnet give Steven good advice might have ruined the “plot” and b.) it wasn’t her episode, so they didn’t want to give her real focus. As a result of wanting to keep the Steven + One Other format, they sacrificed characterization and narrative cohesion by excluding characters that it would have made more sense to include. It was distracting, and it didn’t work for me at all.

Now, you might be wondering: why did they do this? Was it really necessary to do things this way to focus on how awful Steven’s mental state was? Well, no — but that’s not why they did it. Rebecca Sugar revealed why she chose to write Future this way in an interview after it ended:

“… There was a lot about the story that the initial run of episodes had told that I wanted to recontextualize because I think that people […] really put a lot of their focus on—not unlike Steven himself in the character—put a lot of focus on the Gems’ stories that were going on when really as a team we were always very interested in his human story.”

To paraphrase: Rebecca Sugar was upset that people were more interested in the Gems rather than Steven, and as such she cut them out of Future as much as possible to put the maximum amount of focus on Steven and his issues so that we could learn to appreciate Steven instead.

And this … does not work for me. 

First and foremost: You cannot force your audience to like or be invested in a character. You just can’t. In fact, trying to do that often results in the opposite effect; the more you try to shoehorn audience focus and love onto one particular character, especially at the cost of other characters, the more the audience tends to dislike them. I believe the term that TV Tropes uses for this is “The Westly”, or “The Scrappy”, named after characters that, well, became disliked because of how the creators tried to force the audience to like them. It’s perfectly fine, as a writer, to want your audience to focus on a particular character or story point that you think is cool, and it’s perfectly valid to be disappointed when they don’t. But when you create a sequel series specifically to … punish, for lack of a better word, your audience for, say, taking comfort in how good of a parent Greg was to Steven, or for caring deeply and being invested in the plight of the Gems and all they went through in their past instead of being focused on the child character who, in a lot of ways, acted as the audience surrogate … a.) it’s not going to work, and b.) you’ve lost a lot of my respect (not that you care, because you don’t know me), from one writer to another.

But on a more personal level, this doesn’t resonate with me because I never did care about Steven that much, in honesty. In fact, to be the most honest, part of the reason why I put off watching Steven Universe for so long is because Steven’s bratty behavior in the early episodes annoyed me to no end. I was so frustrated by the fact that this bratty, annoying little boy somehow had all the answers that these strong, brave, very competent women around him just somehow couldn’t see or have themselves. When I did start watching, I watched solely for the Gems. I did come to like Steven over time as character development set in and matured, but even so I was never personally invested in him or his story. I always liked side characters more. Even when it came to the humans, I preferred characters like Greg, Connie, and Lars to Steven himself. (And yes, Lars was a huge jerk at first, but this wasn’t treated like an acceptable thing like Steven’s often bratty behavior, which is why it was palatable to me. Also, yes, Steven was a child and so was allowed to be bratty, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like him as a character even if I acknowledge that his behavior is in-character for a thirteen-year-old who has the maturity of an eight-year-old.) So to have Future focus entirely on Steven and his woes, and especially in a way that clashed hard with some of my own lived experiences and values (tl;dr: as a survivor of parental abuse, I would have killed to have a parent as loving and supportive as Greg, so Steven lashing out at him really did not sit well with me at all) really put me off Future and Steven as a character. Rebecca wanted me (and by me I mean “as a person in the audience”, not me in specific) to focus more on and appreciate Steven, but her writing in Future actually did the opposite. It took a character I grew to like and made me dislike him again.

And on that note, Steven himself. In the Gizmodo interview mentioned above, Rebecca talks about how she believes the audience took what Steven was going through for granted (which I don’t think is very true at all given fan discussions and pleas for Steven to see a therapist even before the Future episodes started airing, but hey), but she also says that she wanted to focus on feelings of inadequacy, overwork, and learning that you deserve love because those were experiences she herself had while working on the original show, and so she wanted to explore those experiences through Future and chose Steven to do it. To quote:

“I learned that I just really needed to take care of myself and respect myself and believe that I deserved friends and love. When I started the show, all I cared about really was working. I was very proud to work myself into abysmal health, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, especially artists and people in animation. […] So a lot of what I ended up writing towards the end of the show was about the work that I was doing to try and build a foundation of self-respect that would just allow me to keep functioning at work. By the end, I think I really arrived somewhere that I’ve never been before, where I felt comfortable reaching out to people and saying, ‘Hey, do you want to hang out?’—something as simple as that without assuming that they wouldn’t want to spend time with me? Or little things, you know? Something as simple as putting down my pen and taking a bath just cause I wanted to, or taking a nap in the middle of the day—things I just didn’t feel I deserved before. That really became part of the arc of the show and a lot of what I ultimately wanted to write about in Future.”

Now, there are two things that I want to say first, before I continue:

The fact that Rebecca went through such a horrible time with her mental health, that she suffered as much as she did, and that the animation industry is an industry which promotes suffering like it does, is all heartbreaking, and I am so relieved to hear that she’s in a better place now, and I am goddamn proud of her for reaching that better place. I’m so proud of her for taking care of herself, I’m happy that she has better self-esteem. It’s awful that she had to suffer breakdowns to get there, but the fact is that she’s been working successfully on recovery and that is amazing.

Fiction is an incredible outlet and way for expressing what you’ve gone through in your life. Anyone who has ever written a story can tell you that they put some part of themselves and their lived experiences into what they write. The fact that Rebecca wanted to use a cartoon to share her experiences with mental illness and mental health recovery is perfectly valid and understandable. Not only can she create what she wants, but sometimes telling stories is the best way to express to others what you went through in a way that makes it easier for them to understand your experiences. I don’t condemn Rebecca for doing this at all.

With those things said, though … I really have to ask if Steven Universe was the correct fictional universe to do it in, and if it really worked for Steven Quartz Universe, the character.

The thing I loved most about the original show is that it was, in Rebecca Sugar’s own words, an idealist fantasy world where all conflicts could be solved by talking them out and that the tone was overwhelmingly optimistic. I started watching Steven Universe during a breakdown of my own, because I needed something soft and easy to digest that also had a ton of episodes (and by that point, Steven Universe did have a lot of episodes). Steven Universe didn’t have Reality Ensues moments, by and large. There were characters that had trauma (e.g. Lapis Lazuli), but although trauma was portrayed realistically (and in fact, as someone with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a.k.a. C-PTSD, Lapis is one of the best portrayals of it that I’ve ever seen), for the most part the show always erred on the side of optimism. It wasn’t, “Things are bad, and now they’re getting worse, and now they’re getting worse, and now they’re getting worse” on and on for twenty episodes straight with no reprieve. Even when characters were in bad places that weren’t fixed by the end of an episode (e.g. Garnet and Pearl’s fight lasting several episodes, Lapis running away to the moon and then running away again when she couldn’t overcome her hypervigilance and anxiety), the tone of the show typically suggested that there was still hope for things to get better. It dipped the audience’s feet into the angst bucket, rather than grabbing them by their hair and waterboarding them with it.

But Future was so heavy on the angst that it was memetic to call it Steven Universe: Fear instead. Every single episode only seemed to make things worse. And while that is understandable in the sense that the show wanted to lead up to Steven’s emotional breakdown corrupting him (if that is indeed what happened; it’s still unclear), it’s jarring when you consider the original show’s tone wasn’t that dark and emphasized the importance of communication, rather than showing that the titular character, once known for employing Jesus no Jutsu (a.k.a. talking at problems until they’re no longer problems) to great effect now suddenly actively shunning communication as a means of conflict resolution. “Prickly Pair” is, in fact, a great example of how much of a departure Future was from its predecessor. Steven spends the episode having a conflict over how he feels that he can’t talk to the Gems because they’ll feel guilty for not being there for him, which, okay, I can buy that given that he was always acting as their counsel in the original series. The episode ends with Cactus Steven going on a rampage and attacking the Gems, Steven realizing that this happened because he vented to Cactus Steven about the Gems and didn’t show Cactus Steven love or affection, and the Gems (after Cactus Steven leaving) asking Steven if there’s anything he needs to talk about in a way that’s gentle and shows they want to listen to and help him. And Steven, having realized that this entire mess happened because he talked about the Gems rather than to them … decides to double down on not talking to them and instead bottle everything up instead.

See, in the original series, Steven would have realized that since Cactus Steven went on a rampage because Steven vented to it rather than talking to the Gems about the issues he had with them that what he should do instead is, you know, talk to the Gems and tell them how he feels, especially since they now already have a pretty good idea given that Cactus Steven regurgitated it all to them. This would have resulted in, perhaps not an instant-fix, but a definite road to communication and healing much, much earlier than the fifteen-odd episodes of things getting worse that we had to sit through after this episode aired. But because Future needed to build up to Steven having a breakdown, and because Rebecca wanted to write about her own experiences of bottling things up and pushing onward despite her worsening mental health, Steven didn’t learn the obvious lesson that he would have learned in the original series (hell, that he arguably already knew in the original series), and the Cactus Steven incident was literally never brought up or followed up on again in the episodes that followed, because the episodes that followed didn’t have a big focus on the main CGs. (Which, again, goes back to the format issues, because in the original series you better believe the main CGs would have followed up with Steven about that little incident rather than just apparently forgetting it ever happened.)

I’m not saying that it’s unrealistic for Steven to have trauma or issues due to everything he went through in the original series. What I am saying is that being so heavy-handed with showing those issues, plus having Steven do things that don’t necessarily align with previous characterization, feels a bit more like writing for the sake of a message rather than writing for the sake of character. I’m also saying that Future’s hyper-focus on showing just how Bad things were for Steven, as well as how Bad the Gems and Greg were at parenting, as well as the whole “Steven gets CORRUPTED, GASP” bit at the end, felt quite a bit like a fanfiction to me. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking fanfiction—believe me, I’ve written a LOT of it in my day—but there is a reason why fanfiction is, well, fanfiction, rather than show canon. It’s fun to explore concepts such as Steven going darkside and shattering Jasper and trying to shatter White Diamond and then turning into a giant dinosaur, but is that really something that we want written down in the history of the show’s canon? Do we really want to make Steven Quartz Universe the only character in the show to outright murder someone on-screen, and then laugh about it later, and also never give the murdered character any sort of closure or conclusion to her own arc? Is that something better off in canon, rather than in the realm of fanfiction?

Hm.

All in all, I just feel that Future doesn’t jive with the original series in terms of content or tone. The episodes were entertaining enough, but overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. Given that the original series had a perfectly fine finale with “Change Your Mind”, I’ve decided to take that as the ending to Steven Universe, with the movie serving as the epilogue. Future is, to me, something optional. Rebecca wanted to explore her own experiences through the lens of the character she liked the most, and that’s fine. I’m happy that she got that out of her system. But Future didn’t work for me, I didn’t like it, and so I’m electing to ignore it, personally. I’m not going to include it the next time I rewatch the series. YMMV, and that’s fine! If you liked Future, I’m happy for you. But I didn’t, and this is why.

I hope that was a satisfying answer.

[shinneth]

For the character thing - Connie & Peridot??

Ooooh, interesting pair of choices. Guaranteed variety, at least!

How I feel about this character

She is my spirit animal. No, really, it’s kind of bizarre that it took this long for me to discover how fantastic Peridot is; I dropped off watching SU when I axed my cable - back then it was still early season 1 before she debuted. So I didn’t acknowledge her until I finally caught up on the series around the beginning of this year and holy shit. 

Peridot is immensely relatable as a character; she’s easily one of the most dynamic in the series and by far had the best, most engaging character arc. In a way, I almost feel she set the bar too high, since I haven’t really felt the characters who were redeemed after her really measured up in overall execution. Though Bismuth came close; she just didn’t have much time invested in her story. But hell, I could watch Peridot tell off Yellow Diamond over and over again…

Early on I saw the headcanons of Peridot being autistic - and being so myself, I could see why it’s a popular headcanon, but it made her even more of a character I could relate to. And while she was well-developed and generally had good screentime, there were so many ways I could interpret aspects of Peridot to further her development. There are still a slew of little details about Peridot (or are applicable to her) that aren’t explained very well (if at all). Which is why I dedicated nearly half a million words trying to solve those mysteries and to make Peridot even more amazing than she is already. 

She’s generally a bright light among a bunch of sadsacks in the show - and even when Peridot does have her down moments, they’re completely understandable. Overall, Peridot’s just a delight to see, and her very presence inspires me in ways I’ve never before thought I’d experience. She’s got a steady place in my standing of my top favorite characters of all-time.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

STEVEN.Steven Steven Steven–aah, alternatively, I’m fine shipping Peridot with Spinel, Bismuth, Garnet, Ruby, Sapphire, and Pearl. While I don’t ship Jaspidot, I can easily see that in a one-sided sense where no actual love is in the equation.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Tempting as it is to cheat and just say platonic Stevidot and call it a day, I’ll go with a platonic OTP with someone I absolutely don’t ship with Peridot any other way… I think by default, it’s with Amethyst. I’ve always been perfectly fine keeping platonic Amedot just as that. Though due to my writing, I’ve also come to really enjoy the platonic nature of Greg and Peridot as well. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

Peridot was much better as a character before she became Lapis’ roommate. I’ve always felt this role actually made Peridot regress as a character in some ways (but not entirely - just enough for me to notice and be annoyed by it). Also, Peridot should be leading her own division of the Crystal Gems. :P

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

pppffffff only one, you say?! 

Well, there’s a hell of a lot to choose from… let’s just say I wish Peridot wasn’t totally pushed off to the side once the Rose Quartz=Pink Diamond stuff came about. I wrote a whole story on that. Honestly, I wished Peridot had more of a general presence after she moved back in to the bathroom…

How I feel about this character

The thing that comes to mind is wasted potential, sadly. Connie was far more likable in the earlier seasons, but she went downhill for me after taking up the sword. 

Nowadays, I find her to be pretty damn boring as a character. And her actions in the later seasons really damaged her in ways I’m not sure can be fully repaired. More than anything, now, I feel little more than a sense of dread with Connie because it’s looking more and more like they’ll go the most bland, predictable route with her character in the future… which will just make me dislike her that much more.

And the fanbase overblowing her as a character (plus a certain ship) tends to make me feel even more negatively inclined towards her; it just bothers me that the sheer mediocrity of Connie’s character is something that’s so celebrated.

I have tried in earnest to at least make her more palatable while writing Connie, and I do have at least a few ideas that might actually make her more enjoyable and more engaging as a character, but that’s still just headcanon. At best, I like to see Connie paralleled with Pearl - following in her footsteps too literally. That’s an area that could be explored more that would simultaneously make Connie more interesting and a tolerable (possibly even likable for me) character. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Pearl. And… that’s it, really. I guess it could potentially be interesting to ship her with that boy she accidentally kicked the ass of in school, but honestly, Pearl’s the only one I really want to see Connie with. If not, I’d be A-OK making her realize down the road that she doesn’t really feel the need to be romantically involved with anyone at all.  Maybe Connie grows up to have aspirations so big that she doesn’t have time to even think about romance, let alone want it. I’d be fine with that.

… is it weird that my headcanons for Connie are basically what a lot of people have for Peridot?

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Ergh… canon really soured Connverse even as a platonic ship during the last season, but realistically, there’s little else to choose from. Well, I do really like the concept of Connie and Peridot getting along really well and geeking out together. I have a foundation for that set in my screwy universe, at least…

But sure, in a general sense, we’ll just go with Steven here. :P Jam buds stay as jam buds!

My unpopular opinion about this character

Connie is not fascinating or interesting on her own merit, and she is not meant to be with Steven. The worst thing the show could do is have Connie and Steven get married and have kids. Don’t even imply it. That’s a shitty fate to subject both of them to. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

Connie being overwhelmed with so many lofty life goals she wants to have but has trouble deciding not only what really big career to aspire for, but also her conflicting schedule that would come with being a full-time Crystal Gem if she also fancies making that a lifelong pursuit… then contemplate whether or not she can handle an unstable and unpredictable life opposed to a grounded and more productive career where she’s fully in control of doing what she’s always wanted to do.

Hope those were satisfactory answers! Meme in question is here if anyone else wants to throw other characters at me. :D

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Try, Try Again (pt. 8)

(Cpt 1) | (Cpt 2) | (Cpt 3) | (Cpt 4) | (Cpt 5) | (Cpt 6) | (Cpt 7) ||  (AO3) Thanks to everyone that left such lovely comments on the last chapter! You guys made my whole week :D

Also, I forgot to mention this last time, but Bonus Points to anyone that can guess why the ship is named the Gemini.... Chapter 8 (3314 words)

ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO

Bianca opened the door with one hand, carefully balancing her newest spaceship in the other. Finn would like this one, she was super sure.

Dad had helped her with the really tricky bits, since some Legos were still too small and finicky for a seven year-old to use, but she had built most of it herself. Plus, she had done all the stickers and decorating as well. 

Looking down the stairs, she couldn’t see any sign of her brother. Tentatively, she set the Gemini aside, placing it on top of one of the many shelves lining the side of the staircase. 

“Finn?” She called out his name as she flounced downstairs, running a careful hand along the banister. The basement was silent in response, aside from the low rumble of the dryer. 

In her brother’s absence, Bianca’s attention turned to the large table where his Legos were set out. The city of Bricksburg looked pretty much the same as when she’d last seen it, which was to say that it looked pretty rough. The last time that they’d “played” together, they had ended up arguing over a particularly cool minifigure and Bianca had accidentally smashed her elbow into one of the taller skyscrapers, totally destroying it. And then, when Finn tried to swoop in and catch the top of the building, he had only succeeded in toppling its neighbor as well. 

Bianca frowned at the memory. She hadn’t meant to break the tower, and she hadn’t meant to make Finn so grumpy either. It seemed like everything she did made him mad though, and he never wanted to play the same games as her either. 

She looked over towards where Finn kept his favorite minifigures. He almost always played with the same ones, and he never let her play with any of them, even though he had so many. 

Bianca reached over, plucking Batman’s figure from where he’d been positioned behind some kind of turret gun. 

Batman was the coolest of all Finn’s superheros, Bianca thought. Her brother had given her some other ones, like Wonder Woman and the green guy, a while back so that she’d stop bothering him about it. And then, he hid Batman for a while. She didn’t know how long, but it seemed like approximately the amount of time it takes to produce a feature length animated film... or something. 

Regardless, he was back now. 

Bianca liked Batman because he seemed lonely, like he needed a friend to give him hugs or throw him a party. Sometimes she felt lonely like that, but she had her mom and dad, and from what she’d heard, Batman didn’t. 

Holding him in her hand, Bianca wondered if Batman missed his superhero friends. They were all up in her room, maybe she ought to take-

The door to the stairs opened with a bang.

“Bianca?” Finn called out as he raced down the stairs. “You better not have broken anything. That new tank took me hours to build.”

He pulled up next to her, inspecting the area for damage. 

“I didn’t break your dumb tank.” Bianca stuck her tongue out at his back. “I just came down here to show you something.” She turned to go retrieve the Gemini when Finn suddenly whipped around. 

“Where’s Batman?” He exclaimed. “He’s supposed to be piloting the whole thing.”

“He’s right here!” Bianca extended her arm, the plastic figure still clenched in her hand. 

“Give him back!” Finn grabbed her wrist with one hand and began to pull at Batman with the other.

“Hey!” Bianca yelped. “Let go!”

Finn released her arm and pressed the fist holding Batman against his chest, as if to shield it from her. “You’ve got to stop taking my guys, Bianca,” he muttered darkly.

“I wasn’t taking him,” Bianca bristled. “I was just looking!”

“Uh huh,” Finn scowled. “The same way you were ‘just looking’ at the Justice League?”

“You gave me those guys!”

“Did not!” Finn rebutted. “And I want them back.”

“You can’t do that,” Bianca wailed.

“Can so.”

“Argh!” Bianca tugged at her hair and screamed just a little bit. “You’re the worst!”

Angrily, she stomped up the stairs as loudly as she could, and slammed the door behind her.

Finn’s expression sagged. Quietly, he turned back to his worktable and placed Batman into his seat. As he did so, his attention fell on the little vehicle nearly obscured by Batman’s tank. Gently, he picked the little car up, opened the door, and removed Emmet’s figurine. 

Holding the construction worker tenderly in his palm, Finn couldn’t help but remember all the cool adventures he had made up for his little buddy. About a month ago, when they were shopping for new school supplies, his mom had bought him a big notebook just for writing down some of his stories. He had already filled out a good handful of the pages and had even let Bianca draw in some illustrations. 

He had taken the notebook with him when he went to middle school orientation last week. When the teacher had made his small group go around and share, he had told them that his name was Finn and he liked to play with his Legos and write stories. 

Afterwards, a couple of the kids had asked to see his notebook, and he’d nervously complied. They read through the first few pages, and then most of them seemed to get kind of bored. One kid flipped through the whole book really fast, stopping abruptly on a picture of Unikitty that sprawled messily across both pages. 

The kid laughed, and Finn felt his stomach churn. He suddenly felt like the whole world was ending and the only thing that would stop it would be to snatch his notebook back and hide it somewhere far away. But, the other kids were still holding it and so he’d probably just rip it if he tried. 

“Um, actually,” he stammered, “that one is my sister’s character. Mine, uh, mine has huge fangs and huge claws and uh, can shoot missiles.”

The kids tittered appreciatively at the thought of missiles and cool explosions, but it didn’t make Finn feel as good as he thought it would have. 

Looking down at Emmet, all Finn could see now were the things he couldn’t do. He couldn’t shoot missiles, or do backflips, or take out bad guys, or impress anyone. He wasn’t cool or tough or important or interesting or special. He was embarrassing. 

The sharp plastic edges of the figurine started to jab into Finn’s clammy fingers uncomfortably, causing him to realize how tight his grip had become. Dimly, Finn knew that he wasn’t really upset at Emmet, that it was silly to be upset at a toy. But given that he was a ten year-old boy, the idea of disliking a thinly veiled self-insert was a much more palatable concept than the alternative. 

Setting Emmet back down, Finn turned away, walking up the stairs and out of the basement. As he did so, he failed to notice the newest addition to the downstairs’ collection, and so the Gemini was left to collect dust. 

*******************

“Wow, Nova,” Emmet grinned. “That was a really great story. And so well told, too. I’m really glad I heard it and not like, some kind of fourth-wall breaking, real world analog instead.”

“Pssh,” Nova scoffed, an embarrassed flush rising on her ears. “It was whatever.”

Suddenly, her comm blipped loudly. Nova reached down, pressing a button on her belt to accept the call, and Catastrophe’s voice blasted out. 

“HELLO? NOBLE?” 

She sighed. “Literally who else would it be, Major?”

“GOOD POINT.” Catastrophe coughed awkwardly, causing a jolt of feedback. “ANYWAYS, I HAVE RETRIEVED THE REST OF GROMMET’S CREW AND WE’RE WAITING FOR YOU DOWN BY THE MAIN ENGINE.”

 “Oh!” Nova’s expression brightened. “Alright, we’ll be down in a minute.”

“ALSO PLEASE BRING SOME BAND-AIDS.”

Nova said something in response, but Emmet didn’t hear it. 

The main engine, he thought. That’s what I’m supposed to destroy. Nova’s story still echoed in his mind however, and he couldn’t help but feel ashamed for thinking about destroying a lost and unarmed ship. 

His guide turned toward him, oblivious to his current thoughts. “Come on, dude,” she smiled gently. “You’re gonna love this.”

Quietly, Emmet followed.

*******************

The engine was big. 

Logically, Emmet had known this. He’d seen it on the map earlier, and he remembered thinking to himself wow, that’s pretty big. 

However, seeing it in person, he was utterly struck with the realization that the engine was BIG. 

It was at least two, if not three, stories tall, and it seemed to stretch back infinitely into the ship. The fact that it was constructed out of millions of intricate interlocking pieces only added to the illusion, giving it complexity and depth. 

Even though it was completely off, the way that his eyes couldn’t help but trace the convoluted gears and tracks and tubing of the machine gave it the illusion of movement.

Beside him, Nova nudged his shoulder. “It’s pretty, isn’t it.”

Still bewildered, Emmet couldn’t do much more than nod in mute agreement.

“When it’s on,” she pointed up towards an array of delicate shapes and figures littering the engine, “those all dance and twirl and spin around.” Half turned towards her, Emmet could see how her amber eyes seemed to glow with raw adoration. She was smiling, really smiling, and in the light of the engine room, he suddenly noticed that she had a spattering of light freckles that sprawled across her dimpled cheeks like constellations. 

“ATTENTION EVERYBODY.” Catastrophe addressed him and the five raptors that were standing morosely in the corner of the room. 

“I UNFORTUNATELY CANNOT TURN ON THE ENGINE FOR YOUR DELIGHT AND AMUSEMENT. AS SUCH, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU TO PLEASE IMAGINE THAT IT IS WHOOSHING AROUND AND BEING REALLY SUPER COOL.”

They gave a stiff bow. “THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

For a few minutes, they all stood quietly in front of the engine. Emmet tried his hardest to imagine it in motion, like the Major had requested, and frankly it did seem super cool. Eventually though, Catastrophe spoke up again.

“ATTENTION AGAIN, PLEASE.” They rasped. “IT IS NOW BEDTIME. NOEL, PLEASE ACCOMPANY THE BITEY ONES BACK TO THEIR ROOMS, AND I WILL ESCORT EMILY-”

“Emmet.”

“YES, OF COURSE. I WILL ESCORT HELMET BACK TO HIS ROOM.”  

“Ugh,” Nova grumbled. “Yeah, yeah, alright.” She grabbed the first aid satchel back from the Major and started to herd the raptors out of the room.

“SO,” the Major took Emmet by the elbow and started to lead him down the opposite corridor. “WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE ENGINE?” 

“It’s awesome,” Emmet beamed. “I kinda wish I could see it in action.”

Catastrophe stared at him for a moment, just long enough to make it awkward. “I SEE,” they eventually wheezed before leading him towards his bedroom in relative silence.

When they reached the room, the door hissed open automatically. Emmet stepped into the doorway and couldn’t stop himself from gasping. It was like a luxury hotel room, spacious and well-furnished. He turned back to ask the Major if they’d gotten the right room, but they were gone.   

Alone now, Emmet wandered over to sit on the bed. It was absurdly soft and he couldn’t resist the urge to lie down, pausing only to brush off a few of the decorative pillows and stuffed animals that were taking up the majority of the bed’s surface. In a flash, all his exhaustion caught up to him, and he realized that he probably wasn’t going to get back up until morning.

Absent-mindedly, he picked up one of the stuffed toys that was digging into his side. It was a blue bear, like the one he’d had as a child, long before the world had ended twice-over. 

He frowned. Everything had been so simple this morning, when the Gemini was just a vague threat and there was a straightforward plan to follow. But now, he couldn’t be sure what to do. If he didn’t destroy the engine, then he would fail the seminar and let all his friends down. But if he did destroy it, then Nova and Catastrophe could be stuck here forever. 

Laying on his back, Emmet let his worried thoughts roll through his mind again and again until he slipped into a vague sort of sleep. 

*******************

Apocalypseburg was crumbling. The buildings, the vehicles, even the ground itself was fracturing into a thousand tiny shards. The world was ripping itself apart, accompanied by a symphony of distorted screaming voic-

Lucy fell to the ground, hard. A yelp escaped her lips before she could help it. She looked up, her face twisted in pain, a trace of blood trickling past her brow. There was fear in her ey-

The Rexcelsior streaked through space, its engines gleaming, clearly working at full power. Suddenly, something unseen struck its side, exploding against the hull in a brilliant blast of light. The ship shuddered, rocked by the force of the explosion, sending small sections of ship careening into the void. Its attacker swerved around, avoiding the debris, their guns shimmering as they prepared another volley.

It was the Gemini.

Fully operational.

Its rear engines were spinning, smearing a shimmering golden trail against the backdrop of spa-

Emmet jerked awake. His heart was pounding in his chest, threatening to leap past his ribs altogether. 

It was just a dream, he thought. A- a nightmare maybe. Either way, it wasn’t real. 

But… it had felt real. 

Suddenly, Emmet realized that he was incredibly uncomfortable. His bed was too warm, despite the thinness of the blanket. He needed to get out.

He stood up, feeling the chill of the night air in the sweat on his back. For a moment, he considered calling Rex, telling him about the dream. It usually helped to talk about these things, but… Emmet couldn’t impose. 

It hadn’t been that bad of a dream, he told himself. He could deal with it himself. He’d just go for a quick walk, just to get his mind off things. That was all. 

He stepped out into the hall. The overhead lights were off, but a thin strip of LEDs near the floor emitted a faint blue glow that allowed him to see well enough. He tried to walk gently, so as not to disturb anyone that might still be sleeping. As he was pacing past the bridge, he stopped to look out the vast window. 

It was so quiet and still. Outside the window, glastroids floated by, slowly spinning past one another. The stars in the distance glimmered, and Emmet felt a little better just watching them. He leaned against the dashboard, cupping his cheek in one hand as he stared dreamily out of the window. 

Suddenly, a light on the dash illuminated. Startled, Emmet pulled back, looking frantically to see what he had accidently touched. But, as he searched, he couldn’t see anything that had been disturbed. 

The light blinked again. Beneath it was a label reading “Engine Status”, and beneath that was a readout displaying the word “ACTIVE”.

Emmet stared at the light in confusion. The cold sensation of dread percolated in the back of his mind. Abruptly, he turned on his heel, stalking out of the door and down the corridor towards the engine room. 

As he approached, he crept quieter and quieter, sticking as low to the ground as he could. He could tell he was getting closer, as the ambient light and noise was steadily increasing. Stopping at the entrance, Emmet peered carefully around the doorway.    

Inside the room, he could see Major Catastrophe pacing in front of the vast engine, which had begun to slowly but steadily turn in an intricate motion. Behind them, Nova was bent over, kneeling in front of the machine, performing some kind of maintenance on it. 

As Emmet watched, she grunted and stood up. The engine started to accelerate, and the metallic hum filling the air increased in both frequency and volume. She walked over to the Major’s side, and Emmet suddenly recognized the piece she had been working on - the fuelcell of the Rexplorer. 

“FINALLY,” Catastrophe rubbed their hands together. “WE WILL MAKE IT TO APOC-LICKS-BURG. FINALLY WE CAN SHOW THEM WHAT WE’RE CAPABLE OF!” 

They begin to laugh, a maniacal and distorted sound. 

“Yeah,” Nova agreed, excitement clear in her voice, “I can’t wait!”

The engine twirled faster now, and the activation lights started blinking from red to green. For a long moment, all three characters simply watched the lightshow.

“Do you think,” Nova asked hesitantly. “That Emmet will be upset?”

“MAYBE.” Catastrophe’s mask was illuminated starkly by the glow of the engine, which continued to grow brighter. “BUT HE WON’T BE FOR VERY LONG.”

In his hiding place, Emmet felt utterly betrayed. He turned away from the upsetting scene, pressing his face into his hands. He had trusted them. He had trusted them, and they had stolen his crew and his fuelcell, and they really were planning on attacking his friends just like he’d seen in his dream.

He pressed his palms into his eyelids, trying in vain to stop the tears that were welling up behind them. 

The things that he’d seen… Apocalypseburg being destroyed, Lucy being hurt… he had to stop it. He had to stop the Gemini. 

With a burst of determination, Emmet wiped his face and rose to his feet. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see that Nova and the Major were still preoccupied with restarting the engine. He would show them that he wasn’t as naive as they thought. 

Setting his expression into something hard, Emmet strode into the engine room.

“You stole our fuelcell?” His voice rang out over the drone of the engine, clear and accusatory.

“Emmet?” Both aliens turned to face him, their shock clear on their faces. 

“EVAN,” Catastrophe started, “YOU DON’T UNDERST-” 

“No!” Emmet shouted, ignoring the heat of tears that had somehow snuck past his anger. “No, I understand PERFECTLY. You thought you could trick me, because I’m… because I’m not tough.”

His voice caught in his throat. “B- But, you’re wrong! I am tough. And I’ll prove it to you!”

Buoyed by his rage, Emmet ran towards the engine, easily slipping past the others. 

WHAT MAKES YOU MAD, EMMET?

Trinity’s voice rang in his ears, louder than the engine, louder than his pounding heart.

WHAT MAKES YOU MAD?

That people doubt me, Emmet thought. That people don’t accept me. That people pity me.

W H A T   M A K E S   Y O U   M A D ?

That people don’t think I’m worth anything.

His fist hit the center of the engine. Under his knuckles, the metal screeched. Instantly, the lights flickered, growing to a blinding intensity before dying completely in the blink of an eye. The clockwork pieces and elaborate decorations that had only begun to move seemed to leap from their perches to the unforgiving floor below. There was the sound of things shattering and breaking, the sound of the huge machine grinding to a halt, the sound of its gears chewing themselves to death. 

And then there was silence.  

Panting, Emmet rose to his feet, brushing dust and debris off his suit. Without looking at the others, he moved towards the fuelcell, pulling it effortlessly out of the wreckage. 

“We’ll be leaving now,” he said, his voice cold and flat.

“You… ” Nova fell to her knees, her eyes wide with disbelief. “It can’t be gone.”

Beside her, the Major turned to stare at him with pleading eyes. “BUT,” they wheezed. “WHY?”

Emmet walked past them, trying to remember where they’d placed his crewmates. He looked back, just for a second, at the wreckage. 

“You shouldn’t have taken my stuff.”