#and today is shippy day or something on tumblr

[ouroboros-hideout]

UNTIL I FOUND YOU

OTP: Like Napalm 03/???

Oh, I used to say "I would never fall in love again until I found her" I said, "I would never fall unless it's you I fall into" I was lost within the darkness, but then I found her I found you

[nightshadehoney]

I never watched James Somerton's shitty Killing Stalking video because I was trying to be good to myself and avoid something that I knew would make me very angry. In fact, I never watched any of his stuff because the fact that he made a video like that was enough to discount any thing he ever had to say (also I heard about the Celluloid Closet plagiarism).

But man, is the James Somerton discourse bringing a lot of Killing Stalking-related feelings back up for me. Because I'm mad; I'm still so mad. There are a suprising amount of people on social media who are saying they never watched any of his stuff except for the Killing Stalking video. I'm annoyed not just to find out that the vid had that sort of reach and influence, but also because Somerton's unmasking hasn't seemed to make people reasses the validity of the kind of thing he was saying. People are just now being like "hmm I think this guy might have Issues With Women" but that doesn't warrant any reflection on what exactly the motivation is of people who complain about women enjoying a niche webcomic? Because I don't actually believe you're concerned about the influence of some obscure piece of media when you advertise its existence to your large audience many of whom had not heard of it and would never have heard of it but for your transparent outrage porn video. It's rage bait and the target was women that are perceived as straight. A big channel has publicized the fact that they excised a section that endorsed the opinions in this video from their own because they became aware of Somerton's plagiarism and dishonesty (presumably; if it was actually because they recognized his views were coming from a sexist place I would welcome a clarification). And you know, I don't think that's a good look actually. That you needed to be told he was a bad person and couldn't idependently put together that the misogynist man was saying misogynist things.

The comic ended years ago and the fandom has gone mostly quiet, but to this day people are still the peddling the"fujoshi/stupid teenage girls who don't know what's good for them are shipping these characters because they are too braindead to realize it's not a romance; it's a horror, two things I believe are mutually exclusive. I am smarter than all of these cringe degenerates" bullshit. It's in the comments of the hbomberguy video even; one comment was such a gross misrepresentation of the series that my friend needed to talk me down from getting into a pointless youtube comments argument (bless him) because these people are officially making me lose my marbles.

This narrative is full of shit, it's demonstrably not fucking true. You can go on the artist's twitter right now and its full of her retweeting shippy fanart of that pairing readers were apparently never intended to ship.

(I don't think Koogi knows or cares about James Somerton; she just reblogs the works of fans who tag her. This made me laugh though).

Now this is all speculation because he died decades before social media existed, but I think if Nabokov was alive today his twitter would not be full of Humbert Humbert x Dolores Haze fanart. And yet, I have unironically seen people compare shipping Sangwoo and Bum in Killing Stalking with the misreading of Lolita as a precocious sexual temptress more than once.

And this isn't me saying that Killing Stalking is the disgusting"pro-sexualized abuse" comic that tumblr purity police used to characterize it as either. One of these days I'm going to go truly bonkers and end up banging pots and pans on the street corner, yelling at random innocent passerbys about how stories about romantic and sexual relationships are not required to be Hallmark movies. You can make art about the negative, dark, and troubling parts of these feelings and relationships without creating a pat morality tale. You don't need to approach media analysis like your 7th grade teacher has assigned you an essay on explaining what a novel's "message" is.

Nobody, not the author and not the fans, genuinely thinks that Sangwoo and Bum have a healthy or aspirational relationship. This hypothetical person that does not understand the relationship is toxic doesn't exist. Because girls and women, even the ones having cringey fandom fun on tiktok or whatever, are not so stupid and naive that they are unware that breaking someone's legs and locking them in a muder basement is bad. The type of concern troll rhetoric Somerton employed in his video is directed near exclusively at women interested in men and there's a reason for this. Women are not responsible for abuse that men do to them; nobody is responsible for their partner abusing them. If I never saw people spit this bullshit again it would be too soon.

[inchidentally]

Ngl little bit sad that you're becoming kinda negative on here. I miss when you used to post those super cool thoughtful discussions and analyses, without the need to trash talk or bash on other ships.

(just to say, I'd normally post something like this behind a cut and I promise I always will in future. it just feels like today in particular is a good moment to state a few of these points. I'm not normally this serious lol I just want to kind of mitigate any more drama.)

I've always posted about wanting rpf to be kept out of the drivers' and teams' public spaces and I've always said it's stupid/unnecessary drama when fans of certain fictional ships get genuinely loudly "competitive" over other fictional ships and I've really always been against people hating on the girlfriends who get caught in the crossfire of the fans who truly believe their two drivers are in a secret gay relationship. it's how I've always personally felt and apart from it being my opinion (which is fair for my blog) I also feel like having even a smidgen of traction on my posts means I can potentially prevent landoscar going down the road of certain ships that have fans who've fully crossed over into aggressive/publicly disturbing territory. and who've been doing so for years and only gotten worse.

hell, I've even always openly hated when Lando's individual content gets taken over by people bringing up Carlos or Daniel or even sometimes Oscar or Max F. the man has a life beyond all of those friendships and he very much deserves for his content to sometimes stay just about him. only people like his family or Jon/Lando's team of 10+ years deserve any significant share of credit for Lando's successes but no one's bothering to bring them up in the comments etc.

also, it's still very early days for landoscar as a ship and we have at least two more years of Lando and Oscar as teammates (fairly likely more) so if we can keep out the element of fans who take rpf into widely public spaces/directly to the people involved, then I'm going to continue to occasionally post about it. those types of fans absolutely hate reality intruding and they hate real life partners even more so I'm absolutely going to post about reality and girlfriends regularly. even apart from the fact that I'd feel weird excluding girlfriends, there's a solid reason to do so.

especially when even apart from rpf, the girlfriends always get shit from people who want the guy for themselves or who have decided they get a say in who he dates. I'm not going to pretend like all of that doesn't happen just to avoid all negativity.

as far as the tricky/controversial asks I get, I always put them fully under a cut and tag appropriately so they're incredibly easy to skip. I also batch them up so one of those posts happens maybe once every couple weeks - if that. my content has always been massively on the side of fun content vs anything drama/wank related.

the one thing I will say is that I'm getting a lot of repeat anons about ship drama that I would otherwise not hear about (I rarely look at twitter and my tumblr dash is lovely and tidy with just a few things blacklisted) so I'm going to write one sort of roundup post to cover any more of those and not answer any more. I'm just repeating myself atp.

I also went on my first ever blocking spree in this fandom today when a post I'd rb had a bunch of ragey hardcore rpf people jump onto it and I also blacklisted a few more things. so that's the last I'm personally ever going to see of that drama myself. I still casually ship carland0 and dand0 as well and a whole lot of us are nothing to do with the people publicly pushing shippy shit or doing the whole - god I cannot believe this still happens - 'my rpf ship is real and yours isn't'. they're also the people who call all girlfriends "escorts" and "beards" so they're easy to identify.

one last thing anon is that I hear you but I've got to mention I delete a LOT of borderline hate asks and I leave a fair amount of trolls frothing by refusing to respond to their asks. so I'm very much always trying to keep the content on my blog free of useless drama or negativity.

[redgoldblue]

Fic Writing Review 2023 🌈

tagged by @itwoodbeprefect - i have also been thinking about this so thank you for taking the initiative!

tagging @faorism @gallantrejoinder if you'd care to do this in any form (including as writing/art review)!

Words and Fics (on ao3) 📚

words posted: 52,220, apparently. Which is actually... basically last year's but minus 10k because I didn't do H50 Big Bang this year, because med school. most things in my life now can be stated as 'because med school'. (actually I just realised I didn't do it last year either, but that was because I was already finishing a 10k H50 fic. so my point stands)

fics posted: either 6 or 29, depending on whether one counts the advent calendar as one fic or 24. plus 3 posted only on Tumblr.

first fic: love don't treat you like that (babe, I'm letting you know) (H50). on the NINTH of january, apparently. i've already lost my first-fic-of-the-year contest to last year, unless i unexpectedly finish something today.

last fic: Advent Calendar 2023 / ...Zaph Kilkane, the pre-eminent climate scientist of the 22nd century...

-

Ships and Fandoms ⚓

would you believe I literally did not repeat a fandom this year, outside of the advent calendar. and this year's AC had the most fandoms since 2019.

Hawaii Five-0 (McDanno)

NCIS: LA (Sallen)

Starsky & Hutch (S/H)

House MD (Hilson)

MASH (Punnihawk)

and then AC-only ones:

Star Trek (Spirk)

The Man From UNCLE (Napollya)

911 (Buddie)

Due South (i don't know ship names. are there ship names? Fraser/RayK)

Good Omens (Azcrow)

Leverage (thiefsome)

Almost Paradise (Ernesto/Alex. alesto. i'm coining it)

-

Top 5 Fics by Kudos 🏆

I mean, I have 6 posted fics that can be kudosed separately.

love don't treat you like that (babe, I'm letting you know) (H50)

When You're Loving Me (That's When I'm Loving You) (NCIS: LA)

Advent Calendar 2023 (see above. nine fandoms)

my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime / could never do you justice in reason or rhyme (House MD)

Finding A Cure In You (S&H)

-

Top 5 Favorite Fics 💖

okay, I'm going to count distinct chapters of the advent calendar for this. in no particular order and subject to mood change:

When You're Loving Me (That's When I'm Loving You) (NCIS: LA) - I cited this as a contender for my favourite fic I've written a couple months ago, so obviously it has to go in the year's. what can i say, fake dating is an immaculate trope, and this also all came onto the page very easily which is always vaguely miraculous.

there you go pulling me right back in (H50) - sometimes vague prompts i've had down for ages write up as something that's. fine, but a bit clunky, and I just have to move on bc it's the advent calendar and a new fic each day. sometimes I start writing them and they spring into life with joyous delight. or in this case, uninhibited grumpiness and love.

singing yesterday's songs wishing i could be with you tonight (MASH) - the one that didn't make it into the top 5 kudosed, I assume partially due to being locked and partially due to being a serious tone, not terribly shippy, and Peg POV. But I've had some version or other of it for a long time, it's one of those stories I'm genuinely proud of, and I was glad to finally post it.

Totally Normal (Due South) - it's fun. it was fun. I was slightly nervous about it, because the only prior Due South thing I'd written was Dief POV and this was Fraser and RayK POV and the first time writing either of those, but it turns out watching + liveblogging four and two seasons, respectively, of a character in four months is. enough to cement their voices in my head. it was unexpectedly easy and also. fun.

Festive Spice (MUNCLE) - i just think it epitomises the advent calendar. in the words of coolbreezemage, 'yesssss bake cakes and kiss your partner'.

HMs:

Finding A Cure In You (S&H) - this doesn't make it to the above list due to the fact that I haven't actually managed to reread it since I posted it. but just for the amount of time I spent with it, how different it is to my usual M.O. of writing, and the weird way I wrote it (entirely in the notes app, with almost zero rereading while writing), I have to somehow mention it.

A Thousand Words / To Be Spared (Good Omens) - I don't know if they're favourite but I do think they're good. and the format of to be spared was pleasingly experimental and i think it worked.

-

Fandom Fic Events 🤝

also the Starsky & Hutch SHarecon zine! which the zine still holds copyright on, but will be posted in April.

-

Projects for 2024 👀

mmm gonna sort this differently and also ramble

Ones that will definitely be finished in 2024 and if they aren't you have free rein to come to my house and tie me to a chair come November: MUNCLE wip, The Unwitting Truth Affair/The Honesty Affair, I haven't actually decided which title yet;

Starsky & Hutch, the still-unnamed Huggy & Pete wip.

Ones I have both hope and some amount of faith will be finished in 2024 and if they aren't you have free rein to come into my inbox and harass me about them: Hawaii Five-0 wip, Much Ado About Something (*salutes squares*);

other Hawaii Five-0 wip, state of disrepair. yes, I'm manifesting state of disrepair 2024. probably november/december 2024, but i'm manifesting it anyway;

Leverage wip, all that I want is a kind heart to haunt

Ones I would like to be finished in 2024, and if my brain decides it likes them might be, but all you have free rein for is to politely ask me about them once per business month: Hawaii Five-0 cath/steve/danny pwp, Wait A Minute Let Me Take You There;

horny S&H wip, Previews Of Your Body Driving Me Insane;

S&H Vanessa coda, so cordial / so rotten (don't ask me);

Good Omens wip, love won't you be as you've always been

Ones I don't expect to finish in 2024 but would like to get some words down in: angsty S&H wip, Relentless As The Rain;

ridiculous undercover H50 wip, Four Seasons of Love;

other ridiculous H50 wip, The Irritating, Annoying, Infuriating, (Effective) Seduction Techniques of One Steven J. McGarrett;

SPN ..wip? depending on the time limit on 'progress'?, Smells Like Turpentine.

vague thoughts: i'd like to write a full-length (for whatever value of that. the AC ones actually were full-length, especially the second one, but what I really mean is AC-independent) due south fic. they're very weird and i enjoyed writing them, and I'd also like to write something with RayV in it. maybe if I successfully inspired @itwoodbeprefect to write new ds, when she does that it will inspire me to write something, and we can set up a ping-pong game. no, wait, that's mixing fandoms.

I expect more MUNCLE fic. this one's already 3.5k and rocketing along, and i'm only two-thirds of the way through season 1. what form that will take i don't know at this stage but we'll see.

....i was discussing the vague concept of house/h50 crossover fic with squares literally yesterday and on the one hand I haven't written a crossover since 2014 and also don't want that to be my legacy, but on the other hand i think there is at least a 50% chance it's going to stick in the back of my brain and keep niggling.

[felicitysmoaksx]

Hi everyone! Not much to say here except this chapter is probably the fluffiest yet in this universe. There is a bit of an ambiguous ending with Hank though so you can decide what Sarah does in this scenario. Or at least until I post another chapter because I adore this version of the series so much and when I think it's the last chapter, I get another idea haha. And for all of you wondering where the next chapter of Bottled Up Feelings are Silently Screaming is at, it's coming. I just hit a bit of writer's block. But it's coming. I might also have another version of this series where Sarah was paralyzed from the last down. But I don't know if that's something people would be interested in reading or if it'd be just interesting to me. So leave me an answer in the comments or tell me in my askbox on Tumblr. Song Recs for this chapter: You’re In Love- Taylor Swift, I'll Keep You Safe- Sleeping At Last, At Least- Jessica Baio Happy Reading!

Rating: Explicit (Minors DNI 18+)

Summary:  Hank says enough is enough and learns about Sarah's new boyfriend while Connor learns something new about Sarah. Which leads to a heart-to-heart between the two.

Word Count: 4.5k

Warnings: None that I can see except for a few implicit dangerous scenes and explicit smut

Read On AO3 | Fic Playlist | Fic Playlist but Less Shippy | Want to be tagged when I post a Rheese story

There was a stilted silence in the air. Sarah bit her bottom lip before she sighed and stood from the table. Making her way into the kitchen, she watched Hank move about the kitchen for a moment. Another month had passed without them talking and her pseudo-father had finally said enough. He had all but summoned her here tonight. (Well he said it was another family dinner. But when she got to the house she learned, it would just be her and Hank.)

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” She asked quietly. When he told her it was just going to be them tonight, Hank had tried to soften the blow by telling her he was making her favorite meal. (And quite possibly it was also a bribe to get her to stay when she realized no one else was coming.) 

Her pseudo-father shook his head, waving her offer away. “I’m almost done. But you could take our drinks to the table.”

Sarah nodded, grabbed the two glasses of tea, and walked them to the dining room table. She sat down and once more there was that silence. A stilted silence that made the curly-haired brunette fidget with nerves. 

[LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

“Hey, Doc!” Stella greeted him enthusiastically with a grin as she turned to hand another customer their drink. Then she turned back to grin at him. “Another day at the office?” 

“Another day,” he agreed, nodding his head. “Manhattan please, Stella.” 

Then Connor noticed Detective Lindsay sitting at a table off to the side with a blonde woman, “And another round for Detective Lindsay and her friend please.” 

“You got it.” 

Erin, who heard her name, smirked at her sister’s boyfriend before she waved him over. She scooted over and he took the seat she had been occupying. “Are you trying to earn some brownie points with me, Dr. Rhodes?” 

 “I want to make a good impression.” Connor shrugged, feigning nonchalance. But maybe there was some truth in the police detective’s words because Erin and Sarah were close. If Erin didn’t like him, it wouldn’t be good for his relationship with Sarah. “I know you and Sarah are very close. But I thought you had a family dinner tonight. At least that’s what Sarah told me.” 

“Hank just told her that. They need to talk and this is Hank’s way of doing that. I didn’t know about his plan till I left the district today.” Sarah’s big sister told him, shaking her head, before she turned to her friend. The blonde was trying to contain laughter.  “Annie, this is Sarah’s new boyfriend who isn’t so new, apparently. Connor, this is Annie. We’ve been friends since we were kids, but you might recognize her as Travis’ mom.” 

A light of reconnection flared in Connor’s blue eyes. “That’s right. Is he doing okay? I know that day was a lot for anyone.”

“Kids are very resilient. Two days later he was fine. Honestly, I was more shaken than he was. It helped that Sarah was there with him. The little danger magnet, though she is, kept him calm and safe. That’s all I could ask for.” 

It was an off-handed comment, by the way Annie said it but it still caught Connor’s attention.

“Danger Magnet?” He repeated and his eyes drifted to stare at Erin. The woman sighed, shaking her head. “Annie,”

“What? Come on Erin. You’ve even said it yourself, it’s like that switch that controls fear flips the other direction with her. Especially when someone else is in danger. Look at last month with Olive.”

Or the month before that with the ED on lockdown.

“Last month? You’re talking about when she got burned?” Connor asked, looking from the police detective to her friend. Erin nodded. “According to Olive, Justin’s wife. Sarah pushed her out of the way just before she could get burned.” 

“And that’s just one example,” Annie said as Stella brought their drinks to their table. With a smile of thanks, their friend/firefighter/bartender left to go tend to other customers. “Go ahead, tell him about that day in the train station.” 

Erin looked like she really didn’t want to and Connor almost told her she didn’t have to, but Annie had already opened the door. Besides that, he was curious. So with a heavy sigh and a large pull of her drink, the detective began her story. 

“Sarah was coming back from a trip to New York. She was looking at medical schools and wasn’t totally sold on Northwestern yet. We were supposed to pick her up at Penn Station. And we were there, but we were also on a case that day too. Antonio Dawson’s son-” Sarah’s sister broke off and the dark-haired surgeon felt his stomach drop and fill with something like dread.

“She heard us talking about a suspect. Saw the guy and Diego Dawson boarding a bus. Next thing we know, we’ve lost her and Voight has a text message from her saying Diego was on a bus.  Then we get the driver on the phone and she is telling us there’s a female cop on her bus. Non-uniformed. But she just flashed her badge. I was the only plain clothes cop there. …Instead of telling us what she thought she saw, Sarah had pickpocketed my badge off of my hip and had gotten on that bus with Antonio's son. Because he was in danger.”

“But it was the anniversary of Camille’s death. We all kind of spiral on that day anyways.” Erin finished the story with a sad sigh. Even Annie’s amused face morphed into one of solemn sadness. 

“I can’t believe that it’s been eight years already,” Annie said softly. Seeing Connor’s confused face, Sarah’s big sister clarified, “Hank’s late wife. Ovarian Cancer.” 

An understanding look passed over the surgeon's face. Sarah had talked about Erin, Justin, Hank, Olive, Erin’s brother: Teddy, and even to some extent Erin’s and Teddy’s mother: Bunny. But she never mentioned Hank having a wife. It made sense though. Justin Voight had to come from somewhere.

[LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

“Erin mentioned that you have a boy these days?” They were almost halfway through their dinner when Hank brought up Connor. Sarah nearly choked mid-bite. Swallowing tightly, she wiped her mouth with a napkin and coughed. 

“Did she?” She continued to cough before she reached for her glass and swallowed the rest of her drink in two gulps. She wondered if Erin telling Hank about Connor was her pseudo-sister’s way of getting the heat off of her and Jay because Sarah didn’t think they found a way to tell Hank about them being a couple yet. 

Her pseudo-father nodded his head, “She said that you’ve been seeing him for a while too. That it was getting serious?” 

“Five months. Give or take a month,” Sarah answered with a deep flush filling her cheeks. Sarah knew it was on its way to being serious, but was five months actually serious? Despite her many attempts to give it back to him, Connor never took his spare key back from her. That key now lived on her key ring while he just got another spare key made for his apartment. He also had a key to her apartment now too even though (She was pleased to report that he fit in her bed. But just barely.) she spent five nights out of the week at his place. 

Hank tilted his head, regarding her with perceptive eyes. “How’d you meet him?”

“At the hospital. He’s a surgeon there. I’ve actually known him for a while at a distance. Since I started at Med for my ED rotation. We didn’t get close until a few months back.” Sarah explained as she pushed some vegetables around her plate. Her pseudo-father clicked his tongue.

“Another person from the hospital,” he murmured slowly. Sarah heard the apprehension in his voice and the brunette frowned. She shook her head, “It’s not like that. He’s not like Joey, Hank. He treats me well. It’s probably my best relationship as an adult.” 

Her pseudo-father was still gazing at her with that critical look. Avoiding his eyes, Sarah scooped some of the food on her plate into her mouth.

“You think you’ll marry him?” The choking and coughing noise? Yeah, that was coming from her.

“What?? No!” she sputtered, still coughing. Then she thought about it and shrugged. Because now the brunette was actually thinking about it.  Feeling a little sheepish because truthfully? Even though her future was blurry with Connor, it seemed to drift a little more into focus each day. (Sarah, what are you saying? You haven’t even said ‘I love you yet.’) 

“I don’t know. It’s still too early to tell.” 

“You know, I knew I’d marry Camille early on.” He told her with that same wan smile. The one she saw before the car exploded. Sarah felt her hand clench around her fork. It wasn’t like Hank to stall. He wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. Setting the piece of silverware down, the brunette sighed. 

“Why don’t you just tell me why I’m really here, Hank?” The brunette asked him and when he sighed; she continued, “Because you wouldn’t bring me here just to talk about my love life.” 

“I wouldn’t if you would be talking to me at all these days. Take one of my phone calls in the last few months.” Hank said quietly, standing to take the plates to the kitchen. There it was. She followed him to the kitchen. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Hank said and Sarah remained silent. Just like Hank promised to be with her till the world blew up, they also made a promise to never lie to each other. Even if things were bad. Especially if things were bad. 

“You lied to me.” Her pseudo-father raised an eyebrow at her accusation as well as the tone of her voice. She continued, “Charlie. Him being back not only in the state of Illinois but in Chicago.” 

Hank sighed, “I didn’t lie to you, Sarah. I just didn’t tell you-”

“No,” Sarah’s voice was so cold and crisp; that it could cut through metal. “Don’t you dare try to pull that. An omission is still a lie. You of all people taught me that.”

“Sarah,  It was an investigation.” Hank turned away from her as he turned on the kitchen sink faucet to start the dishes. 

“But what about after the investigation was over? When you arrested him…What was stopping you from telling me then?” Sarah pressed him, her hands clenched into fists. He sighed again and she felt her hands curl in even tighter. 

Hank dried his hands. Then he rested a hand on her shoulder, “Sarah, I know you’re not a kid anymore. You aged out of the system years ago and I know I’m not your guardian anymore ” 

 “But as I’ve always said, you’re my kid. No blood or piece of paper is stopping the fact that you’re my daughter.  So I’m going to try and protect you whenever I can. You’ve taken enough lumps in your life since I’ve met you and  I’m not always going to explain myself and you’re not going to like that. That is okay. You can be mad at me all you want or need to. But never forget that I love you. That I do these things because I love you.” 

[LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

“Sarah? You here?” Connor called out, dropping his messenger bag by the door and his keys on the kitchen counter. The television was on when he unlocked his front door and the backlights in his kitchen were on, but the lights in the living room were off. Sarah usually did that because she liked the dim lighting with the glow the city lights cast into his apartment. 

Connor saw her hand shoot up from the couch before he heard Sarah’s soft moan. It sounded like she had been asleep. With a small smile, he made his way over to her. When he saw his girlfriend bundled up, he chuckled a little. “The bed would probably be more comfortable.”

“Didn’t seem late enough to go to bed yet. Plus I was trying to wait up for you. By the way, I brought you some leftovers if you’re hungry. They’re in the fridge.” She yawned as she started to sit up. The dark-haired man felt himself soften. It almost took his mind off of the story Erin had told him earlier. Almost.

“Thanks. But Maggie forced me to take a late lunch break so I’m not that hungry.” He mumbled quietly as he bent down and cupped her face to press a quick kiss to her lips. Then he slipped an arm under her legs and wrapped the other around her waist before he lifted her into the air. 

“Connor, I can walk.” Sarah protested even though she nuzzled her head into his neck and her arms looped around his neck. 

“Sarah, I can carry you,” Connor mimicked her tone, stopping by the door. “Lock the door for me, baby? My hands are kind of tied up.” 

“Whose fault is that?” Sarah teased him as a yawn left her mouth, but she flipped both locks on the door. In response to her teasing, he kissed her forehead. He lingered. 

“Are you okay?” She asked, narrowing her brown orbs at him. Though her sleepy haze clouded her gaze and made her pointed look miss its mark. 

No, with what he was told tonight Connor he was very much not okay because his girlfriend seemed to have a knack for running headfirst into danger...and he had no bubble wrap large enough to wrap around her frame. He moved to the bedroom. “Fine. Just tired. Why do you ask?” 

“You kissed me on the forehead and lingered. You only do that when I’m sick, hurt or something is bugging you. And I’m not sick or hurt. So that leaves the third option.” She told him, rubbing her eyes as she was set on his bed. 

“You did laundry?” Connor asked when he saw the basket of laundry. The curly-haired brunette nodded falling back on the bed. “After my dinner, I needed something to do and I noticed your scrubs were dirty. I also changed the sheets on the bed since you said the other day, you had been meaning to do it. But the dirty ones are washed and in the dryer.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Connor told her before he walked the basket to the bathroom so he could fold it tomorrow. He didn’t always use the closet in the bathroom, but he had shuffled things around so Sarah had space for her stuff too. 

“Connor, I spend five nights out of the week here. Sometimes more than that and you do my laundry when I leave stuff here. I can help out. Besides, I needed something to do. My dinner with Hank was something. And it was just Hank and I, by the way, he lied about Erin and Justin being there.” 

“I know. I ran into your sister and her friend Annie, at Molly’s earlier. Erin told me what was going on.” He called as he walked back to her. “Her and Annie had some interesting stories about you. They told me you’re a danger magnet.” 

His blue eyes trailed after her as he leaned against the bathroom door frame, facing into his bedroom. He watched as she tumbled out of his bed and then pulled one of his long-sleeved t-shirts out of the dresser, before she swapped the one she had on her body for it.  It fell to the middle of her thighs.“Had a few stories to prove it too.”

“What do you want me to say here, Connor?” She yawned while he prowled more into the room, shucking his jeans and shirt. “If I see someone I care about in danger, and I have the power to get them out of it then of course I’m going to take the chance.”

Scoffing, he pulled her into his arms, dropping his forehead to hers. “Even if it means at the expense of you?” 

His brunette beauty avoided looking in his eyes while she shrugged. A growl left Connor’s mouth while he tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. Her brown eyes were sad while his were filled with a fiery anger. “You can’t jump in and save everyone, Sarah. It’s just not possible.”

History was repeating itself because he said those exact words to her two years earlier. 

“I might not be able to save everyone but watch me try either way.” She responded in an almost petulant tone of voice. Connor released another growl of frustration and moved his knee in between her legs as he lifted her up to sit on the bed. His stubborn stubborn girlfriend.

“But what about the people that care about you? What happens to them when something happens to you? Your dad, sister, and brother? Your friends?” Me? He left himself out of the question, but from the way her brown eyes softened, she heard the unspoken word. 

She was back to not meeting Connor’s gaze as she admitted quietly, “I’m expendable, Connor.”

“What the hell-”

“There was a time that I didn’t think I’d make it to see my sixteenth birthday. I was nine the first time that thought entered my mind. And I know how fucked up that sounds. I knew it was fucked up then. And I don’t know. Maybe, even though I know I made it past that birthday and I’m healthy. Nothing short of a freak accident happening right now.  Part of me-the unconscious part of me that is still that scared kid, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get rid of her and she still thinks she is living on borrowed time.”

Dread filled his stomach because if this was truly the way she thought about herself…Her brown orbs turned glassy as tears gathered in her eyes. “I know that sounds awful. But if I’m going to die…I want my death to mean something.”

[LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

No words seemed to be able to convey what he wanted to say. How he wanted to shake her and make her see reason. She wasn’t expendable; she never would be. At least not to her family or to him. So Connor crushed his lips to hers in a desperate kiss as he brought her body closer. No room was left between them. His tongue fighting with hers. The brunette beauty in his arms whimpered, cupping his face in her small hands. She scooted back a little so her legs could wrap around his waist. Connor crawled after her. With a gasp, Sarah pulled away with her lips feeling a little swollen from Connor’s kiss. 

“Connor,” she moaned when he angled his head so he could press open-mouthed kisses to her neck. “Connor,” 

Hands seemed to trace down her body. Everywhere she felt branded by his handprints as they pressed softly into her skin. Her back arched as those hands slipped under her shirt. Connor rasped against her skin, “Arms up, baby. I want you naked right now.” 

Sarah giggled and did as she was told. As the shirt left her body she said playfully, “But I’ll be cold.”

“That’s why you have me,” he growled when she bucked against him. The shirt fell to the floor. Then settling his hips against hers, he pressed his lips to her jaw as he reached behind her to undo her bra. The cool air made her nipples harden as he threw the garment on the floor. Connor’s ocean-blue eyes darkened at the sight. It made Sarah grin. 

She had a set of lingerie she had bought months back in a spur-of-the-moment buy with the man on top of her in mind because it was in his favorite color and accented her cleavage especially, very nicely. But she hadn’t had the confidence to wear it because when she bought the underwear set, she wasn’t sure if buying lingerie for a guy she just sleeping with was socially acceptable. She hadn’t worn the set in the last two months because she worried she would be uncomfortable with the laces in the back agitating her healing burns.

She whined when he wouldn’t let her buck against him. “Connor! Don’t tease. Just fuck me,”

“No,” his voice was a low rumble in her ear. He pressed a kiss there too. “I’m not fucking you tonight.” 

“What? Conn-” she started and was cut off by her boyfriend’s lip capturing hers. She moaned and he swallowed the sound. Her hands drifted to his hair. Now it was her boyfriend who pulled away first. Another whine left Sarah’s mouth. 

“Patience baby.” He murmured against her skin before he leaned up a little. She watched through hooded eyes as he trailed a hand down her stomach. Then it disappeared from view and she felt his fingers against her clit through the fabric of her boyshorts. She jumped a little at the sensation at first before she settled, spreading her legs wider for him. “Ohhh,”

“Already wet and I haven’t really done anything.” He mumbled licking a path up her stomach to her breast with the tip of his tongue. She couldn’t even find it in herself to feel embarrassed. 

“My body knows you.” She mewled the words as an explanation as Connor teased her nipple again by swirling the tip of his tongue around it. “Please, Connor!”

“You need to be wetter for what I have planned though.” He rasped and that voice. That voice and the way he spoke in bed alone could have her dripping in a matter of minutes. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have her own tricks up her sleeve too. 

“And what-Oh!” She was interrupted by him sucking her nipple into his mouth. After sucking on it briefly, he released it with a wet pop. Then she was crying out as he sucked a biting mark just underneath where he had been moments earlier. It added to the collection of love bites she already had. The words that fell out of her mouth were a mere pant and unintelligible, but she finally managed to calm down enough to purr, “And what do you have planned, Dr. Rhodes?” 

“Fuck,” Her boyfriend moaned against her skin. But with the way Connor’s body was pressed against hers, Sarah could feel how much her words affected him without the verbal noise. She grinned as he kissed a path back up to her lips. Another bruising kiss was pressed to her already swollen lips. 

Her hands drifted back to his inky black hair and she tugged on the strands. He pulled away from her lips to tug at her ear lobe with his teeth before he whispered, “I plan on making love to you slowly and thoroughly. I want you wet enough that we can hear it as my cock enters and leaves you. Over and over again.” 

Her teeth sunk into his shoulder a moment later to muffle the loud moan that left her mouth. It wasn’t often that Connor talked dirty like that to her. It was only broken out on special occasions. And she knew from reading romance novel after romance novel in college, that this dirty talk was milder than most. But it excited the curly-haired brunette in just the right way. 

He moaned before he leaned over and took a condom out of his nightstand. Then he removed both of their undergarments still remaining and rolled it on himself. He situated himself against her center.

“Expendable was the word you used baby?” He mumbled, pressing another kiss to her jaw. With her eyes widened, she nodded mutely. Humming Connor instructed her to wrap her arms around his neck, “I want to feel you, Sarah…That’s my girl. Because that’s what you are. Mine. My girl.” 

With those words, he thrust into her shallowly. They both moaned. 

In and out. In a slow steady pace. It was almost like he was teasing her but more intense. They could hear the squelching as well as the slap of their skins. But that wasn’t what filled Sarah’s ears until she and her lover both came; it was the possessive word Connor kept repeating like a mantra. “Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine...” 

“Yours,” Sarah echoed as she reached her high. Nails clawing into his back. Choking out another moan, “Yours.” 

 Connor fell into that pleasurable high a moment later with a throaty groan.

[LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

Afterward, when Connor had cleaned her up (Because he wouldn’t let her do it herself.) and put cream over the burns on her back, (Okay, that’s because she couldn’t reach her burns herself.) and put his shirt back on her, (“I undressed you, baby. A gentleman always takes care of their woman.”)  they settled against each other in bed. Sarah nuzzled her face into his fuzzy chest. 

“Not that I’m in any way complaining, but what was that?” She whispered, peering up at him from her place on his chest. A worn-out smile on her lips. The arm around her waist tightened as he used his other hand card through her curls. 

“Run head first into danger all you want to. I’m not deluded enough to think I could change that about you. Even if it makes me want to shake some sense into you, I don’t think I want to change that about you.” He started softly, “But you are not expendable baby. You have people that care about you.” 

He paused to cup her jaw so she was looking at him, “I care about you, Sarah. I love you.” 

Their blurry future just got starkly more in focus with those three little words. (She didn’t fail to see the irony that she had just thought about those words just earlier this evening.)  It was a scary feeling to realize that they weren’t just on their way to serious anymore. They were right smack dab in the middle of serious. But the more Sarah thought about it, the more she realized…

“I love you too.” She whispered back, pressing a kiss to the hand holding her chin. Because truthfully, Connor’s warm embrace had become a place of safety for her. His warm citrus scent filled her with similar security to what she felt at home. Connor had become home for her. Despite all of the denying she did and attempts to keep herself from getting too attached to him, that’s why she asked Maggie to get him the night she got burned. She pecked his lips, urging him quietly with a bright grin. “Say it again.” 

“I love you, baby.” His tone was soft and muted. His smile was gentle as he brushed her curls back and traced a finger down her cheek. Another kiss on his lips was his reward, “I love you too.”

[bropunzeling]

I’m sorry to hear you’re having a bad day - I don’t know you personally, but I do know that your Tkaisaitl brings me great joy (the arranged/political marriage idea!! The pining while married, the “we must do romantic things because It Is Expected but oh how I wish they were true,” the “we want each other carnally but surely I’m the only one with feelings and a fragile heart” of so many fun scenarios) and your ballet dancer Quinn (of the billowy shirts!) with hockey player Brady who is Looking Respectfully (and longingly) is inspired and has been occupying my mind since you mentioned it. I hope you feel better and are entertained by whatever shippy content/imaginings your heart desires today.

❤️ thank you anon! and i am so very fond of both of these concepts, i really hope one of them will hook in so i can turn it into a proper fic! beloved pal tumblr user hopetorun also noted that there could be something fun with an arranged marriage matthew/leon... where the arranged marriage is to someone else. so i have delighted myself in thinking about leon as a loyal retainer/right hand man/guard to [insert oiler here - cmcd? tyson barrie?? someone Fine but only Just Fine] who is now engaged to foreign prince matthew, who gets under leon's skin, and doesn't even seem to really like it here, and is surprisingly good at dueling, and less surprisingly very funny (and looks delighted for the briefest of seconds when he gets leon to break into a teeny tiny grin), and keeps showing up wherever leon is to like, look Handsomely Aggravating at him, and leon is very good at being a Loyal Retainer but there was no training for falling for your lord's betrothed. as it were.

[acollapsar]

i usually don't like to talk about certain characters or ships i don't like in an overly negative way because i honestly see no point in wasting my energy on hating a certain ship when i can spend that time loving my otp instead. however, i'm having a bit of a rough time with filtering on tumblr and i really need to vent... so, i guess if you're a sebac*el enjoyer... don't read?

i'm so insanely tired of going into sebastian's tag on tumblr and be so overwhelmed by all the sebac*el fanart. and what sucks even more is when i see a piece of art of the two of them that i perceive as non-shippy and simply just.... you know, them, in the same manner yana would maybe draw them (which many people would call 'suggestive', yet what i would refer to as just sebastian being possessive over his dinner. i know, i know, this topic is a debate in and of itself but it's not what i'm here for today).

but that is exactly it. that's what pops into my mind whenever i see that type of art of them; ociel being on display, more or less, and sebastian patiently waiting for his dinner to be ready. i don't know if i'm making a lot of sense, but i HOPE people get what i mean; an artpiece that i don't perceive as shippy, but shippers do (i know not all sebac*el shippers are the same, so don't throw that at me - i'm talking about the general degeneracy some seba*el shippers does have).

i see artpieces like that, thinking they look super freaking cool and pretty and i want to reblog them - until i read the tags and they're tagged with their shipname. suddenly i'm so turned off from reblogging it because i don't ship it so i don't want those kinds of artpieces on my blog. maybe the artpiece isn't even meant to be shippy, but the op still tags it as that to reach a wider audience. but how should i know? i don't want to reblog something really pretty that i didn't think of shippy at all, only for it to be intended that way by the op.

now, i'm well aware that art is INCREDIBLY subjective. if i see an artpiece like that and i don't think it's shippy, that should be well but enough for me to reblog it and call it a day. i don't care what other people think of me either if they saw that on my blog and saw the tags on the op post and somehow thinking that i ship it or whatever. but what i do care about is my own immersion. if i look at an artpiece that i do not perceive as shippy, but am told via the tags that it actually is, then my immersion is broken.

people can post whatever they want, i don't care. i try to blacklist certain tags to the best of my ability as it is, but more often than not certain posts slips through the cracks anyways, and i just feel very disappointed.

you can ship whatever you want, and as long as i don't have to see it (hence my tag blacklists) if it happens to be a ship i strongly dislike, i really don't care what you ship. i am also in no single way trying to imply that great artists are "wasting their skills drawing something i dislike" - absolutely no fucking way. but it still doesn't change the fact that i get this sense of disappointment every time i see a really pretty artpiece of the two of them that i want to reblog, only to find out that it's supposed to be shippy.

this isn't even anybody's fault, except tumblr's website because you just can't properly filter out things you don't want to see. it's not the artists fault this website is shit, and it's not even my fault for feeling the disappointment that i do (even if it might make me come across as a little bit entilted just because i'm expressing my own disappointment with the amount of awesome fanart i see that turns out to be something i strongly dislike; it's just that it happens so much and so often that everything piles up within me after a while).

all i want is to be able to browse tags without having posts slip through the crack - whether they're something as trivial as fanart pieces, or even something really triggering type of content.

[lost-technology]

Something of a mild rant:   So, the other day, on Facebook, I saw on the Ao3 community there or somewhere a poll about “What is a ship in your fandom(s) that everybody ships that you can’t stand?”   I thought about it for a moment, thinking there really aren’t any ships I really can’t stand, I’m very much a ship and let ship - but I do have a couple of ships I find kind of boring (I like Zelink in Zelda fandom, but only to a degree because I get so bored of it because it’s everywhere).  The other one?  Vashwood.   And looking through the Trigun tag on tumblr today... oy, I am reminded of why I don’t like it.  It’s not that it’s a bad ship at all, it’s not that Vash and Wolfwood don’t have chemistry, it’s just that... IT’S FREAKING EVERYWHERE and it’s one of those things that I feel like most of the fandom wants to force on everyone.  Here I am going “Um, I kind of think that Vash is probably aro-ace in Trimax and Tristamp.  I kind of think that he and Meryl might start being a thing in Trigun ‘98 but nothing ever got serious except a Wolfwood / Milly thing at the end.”   Trigun... it’s one of those things I’ve always enjoyed as a gen-property. It’s something that I fundamentally think of as a gen-story, tragicomedy, sci-fi and about deep philosophical issues with world-ending stuff going on and not really much time for / room for romance.   It just doesn’t *feel* shippy to me - not in the same way as say, other things I am into, something like the modern reboot of She-Ra (ships, most of them queer, everywhere) or some of the Fire Emblem games (where you’re supposed to pair characters to get their children from the future to fight with your army and such and you can change up the ships with every playthrough).   Even as someone who does mildly ship Vash x Meryl and Wolfwood x Milly (because of ‘98) - I mean, I don’t see that much in the ways of fanart for that, or people analyzing that, it’s basically all yaoi all the time.  People have their imaginings of if they were involved in making canon how they’d make it canon... meanwhile, I’m over here with a stubborn gen-story fan enjoying ace or mostly ace headcanon for Vash going “Don’t force this on me!”  I know that technically, no one is, we all can experience the things we like in different ways, especially in a property with a main character who loves everyone he’s around deeply and strongly, but, it’s like... there’s some part of me that worries that I’ll be shuffled to the side of the fandom / thought of as not a true fan / or be “on the outs” because the fandom’s main OTP is a Bro-TP for me.  

[factorialsotherfandoms]

if theres an idea I previously mentioned and you want to see, or an au I did you want to see more of, or an alt PoV/sequel/prequel to something I've already written youd like, reply with it and I'll add it to my list for when I need ideas and try get to it /eventually/. The above are just what have stewed enough to write.

I'll probably write a bit before the poll ends but it is as it is ^^;

[ierotits]

im gonna preface this post by saying i am absolutely not saying you cant read the book. its a classic, its historically important, and from what i can tell it really is a great book aside from this (and probably others). absolutely read and enjoy it, please just think critically about how youre interacting with this bit specifically

long story short i saw fan art of Queequeg from Moby Dick. having never read the book and never heard of the character i immediately recognised that this person was doing a poor attempt at portraying a māori man with facial moko, and did the research (aka read the wiki page so lmk if ive got anything way off)

Queequeg is described as a polynesian man from a fictional polynesian island, who is the son of a chief, a cannibal, and a whale harpooner. physically hes descriped as having purple/yellow skin (wtf), with a face and body covered in tattoos.

the author specifically drew inspiration for this character from descriptions of Te Pēhi Kupe, a Ngāti Toa rangatira who visited England in 1824. this character is undeniably māori, or at least a crude caricature of a historical māori man

lets break this down

we are so regularly looked down on for our history with kai tangata or cannibalism. māori of the time, and for decades to come, were stereotyped as violent cannibals. this character is clearly taking this disgusting caricature and running with it. not having read the book, i dont know what the tone of the descriptions of him are, but if i had to guess i imagine the reader is either meant to laugh at them, or think of him as some fascinating creature from a far off land with barbaric traditions. exactly the way white europeans looked at us

there is a frankly horrifying history of whaling being forced on māori, and our people being manipulated by whalers looking for profit. im sure some people remember the wellerman song, based on 2 brothers who would kidnap māori for their whaling. i had an ancestor who was stolen away from his family, kept as a slave to work a whaling ship harpooning because of the view of māori as great and violent hunters

if tumblr isnt exaggerating, there are also overtones of this character potentially being gay. this is not a good thing. it was almost certainly done to put yet another negative stereotype on the character. when pākehā first began arriving, they were disgusted by the nature of same sex relationships between māori, its again something we were regularly stereotyped as "look as these savages having gay sex". this character being queer is not a compliment

this author specifically targeted māori in creating this caricature, taking every stereotype they laughed at us for and shoved it on a character. absolutely read the book and criticise this portrayal, but having scrolled the character tag today, it is 99% people making shippy fan art doing disgusting caricatures of facial moko, putting yet more stereotypes on this character. its fucking typical of this site and to be honest, its fucked up my entire day

for the weequay thing, darling george lucas specifically based the weequay as a species on this character. their physical appearance, their violent attitudes, the use of a harpoon as a weapon, its all based on a caricature of a māori man. fucking george lucas cant even let me enjoy one of my favourite characters without making it a racist attack on my people

[pinktintedmonocle]

Rules: Post your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers!

Thanks to @idontknowkaratebutiknowcrazy, @wanderingspiritys and @secondclassfangirl for tagging me!

Oh boy, choosing just five is tough, but here we go:

Defiance – Black Sails

One of two fics I wrote for the Black Sails Fandom after binging the whole series in 2017 and just having a lot of feelings about Flinthamilton.  This is just a fun and fluffy oneshot with a smidge of angst set post series.

Summary: They lasted three weeks at the plantation before James set fire to something.

The Setup – Lucifer

This one was a fill for a prompt I got from a lovely anon on Tumblr, and was so much fun to write.  It’s Piercifer because I loved Tom Welling as Marcus Pierce – his chemistry with Tom Ellis was excellent and I do kinda wish they’d done more with his character in the show.  But that’s what fic is for anyway, right?

Summary: The ladies decide to set up Pierce and Lucifer. Shenanigans ensue.

Blue Is Not The Only Colour – Red Dwarf

Holy moly, this fic was a long time in the making – eleven years, to be precise.  I’ve been reading Red Dwarf fic for as long as I’ve had access to the Internet, so many a year now, but my attempts to write my own came to a halt in 2009 as I just had too much other stuff going on then.  But then the pandemic hit, I got two months off work and the new Dwarf special came out which was hella shippy, so I finally just dived in and wrote the Lister/Rimmer fic I’ve been meaning to write for over a decade.  And then I wrote two more straight after!

Summary: Red Dwarf is under attack. All systems are down with no hope of recovery. The crew is doomed. And all Lister can think about is Rimmer’s new purple uniform.

You See Right Through Me – Cobra Kai/Karate Kid

Oh my gosh, how do I choose between all my CK/KK fics?  I’ve now written 17 fics for this fandom, which is completely crazy because I’m never normally that prolific – before I found this fandom I was a 2-3 fics a year kinda gal.  It’s largely in part to the amazing fandom – you guys are all so amazing and supportive.  I’ve chosen this one in part because it’s the longest fic I’ve ever posted and managed to finish, so proud of myself for that, and also because writing tiny ghost!Daniel was a joy.

Summary: When Johnny breaks into a supposedly haunted house for a dare he’s not sure what he’s expecting to find, but it’s certainly not a small ghost from New Jersey with big eyes and an even bigger attitude.

Letters from a (would-be) lover – Morbius

Was Morbius a great film?  Possibly not.  Did I come out of the cinema the human equivalent of the heart eye emoji, obsessing over Matt Smith’s Milo?  You betcha!  His chemistry with Jared Leto was the best thing in that movie by a mile and it was actually really refreshing to see a film depict main characters suffering from chronic pain and the way they dealt with it in their day to day lives.  Granted, they all ended up turning into vampire bats, which I’m pretty sure isn’t an option for the rest of us, but still.  Anyway, I’m really happy with how this fic turned out, so it’s going on the list.

Summary: For Milo, there are good days and there are bad days, but there are also the worse days, the days where the pain takes over so completely that he loses his sense of self, days when he can’t eat anything or touch anything or even breathe without every nerve in his body screaming out in agony.

Milo can tell, before he’s even opened his eyes, that today is going to be one of those days.

I'm tagging @ereiniel, @xaviqrs, @asphodel-storm, @outforawalkbitkah and @missviolethunter and anyone else who sees this and wants to give it a go!

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

HOLY HELLO Sketchy friends, followers, and fans! It's that time again, time for...

SHIPPY SATURDAY!

The heck is happening here? Here's an FAQ~ Wanna support the event? Here's my Ko-fi!

That's right, it's FINALLY the last Saturday of the month... and I've decided it's high time our Quotable prompt evolved into a Dialog prompt! This is gonna work a lot like previous Quote prompts, but with an extra twist, so please make sure you read the guidelines for a valid request before sending in!

ONWARDS!

To make a VALID Shippy Saturday request, please send me the following in an ASK to my ASKBOX:

The COUPLE you'd like me to sketch up ---- OC? Heck yes! Canon? Hell yeah! All characters welcome, so long as they're from Fallout ---- OC x OC? Cool! Canon x Canon? SWEET! OC x Canon? DAMN RIGHT.

The NUMBER of the dialog snippet you'd like me to art them saying ---- Got more than one favorite? You may list up to THREE in your ask, in order of preference, to help the artist avoid repeats <3 ---- Still can't pick? Send in 'Dealer's Choice!' and the artist will pick one for you.... oooor possibly make up some fresh dialog on the spot ;3

What KIND OF RELATIONSHIP your couple has with each other ---- Romantic? Platonic? Professional? Familial? Rivals? Neighbors? Despite it's name, Shippy Saturday is about all kinds of human connections, not just the romantic ones! ---- Is your couple part of a larger OT3 or poly group? Tell me who else is part of the relationship; they probably won't get arted, but they might add their two cents to the scene from off-frame XD

IF YOU'RE SENDING IN AN OC!! ---- Send your request ask FIRST, without reference information ---- THEN send your OC's reference information to me via my Tumblr IM ---- Don't have any reference pictures, but you can type of a written description? Great! I love working from written descriptions! :D [ No, really, I do. Give them to me :D ]

After that, you can leave all the rest to me! :D [ I.e Please do not request poses or specific actions ]

Hokay? HOKAY! With all of that out of the way, let's get onto the dialog snippets! These are taken from various things I enjoy, as well as some of my own work. These quotes have been modified to gender neutral pronouns, to remove most proper nouns, and for brevity.

[ Some of these quotes have multiple speakers! That will be shown like this! "Speaker A" -- "Speaker B" ]

"Yeah, well, I'm a victim of circumstance" -- "... I thought you called it your pecker."

"Here, you look cold."

"You are so lucky I love you." -- "Damn right."

"You know the routine." -- "Yeah! WE do all the work, YOU get all the credit!"

"I want you with me, but... I'm scared." -- "Trust me. Trust me to take care of myself." -- "I trust you, it's the rest of the world I'm terrified of!"

"No breakfast?" -- "I did it yesterday-- bologna and beans, it's your turn." -- "No... It was eggs. I did eggs... over easy." -- "The hell you did! Bologna and beans, it's your turn!"

"I like the kind of person who can handle themselves... think on their feet."

"So you were ahead of me." -- "I don't know about ahead, but I've been behind you ever since you fried those mannequins."

"Don't make me say it out loud..." -- "... I can say it first, if that'll help."

"Nooooooope... five more minutes." -- "We were together all night." -- "Didn't count... I was sleepin'."

"Well, this is very serious" -- "IT IS!" -- "You, you destroyed a door." -- "Colonel, we're talking about a test on an armored vehicle, that will carry people into combat." -- "Right, but this door is property of--" -- "The shell barely penetrated the door." -- "okay, but now it's all bent out of shape. How are you gonna get it back on its hinges?" -- "I'LL BUY THE ARMY A NEW GODDAMN DOOR!"

"Sorry, I thought... I thought you were trying to buy something I'm not selling."

"I'm busy." -- "Too busy to look up?"

"You can't kill people just because you don't agree with them." -- "You see, that was the ONE point me and the doctors could never agree upon."

"Would you ever consider having a drink with an enlisted solider?" -- "Depends... does the enlisted soldier think I need one?" -- "What are they gonna do? Kick you out?"

"Thanks" -- "No problem, anytime."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up-- one day it's gonna happen to you. Someday someone is gonna ask you, who is it? And a face is gonna jump to the front of your mind, and it's gonna completely sandbag you... I can't wait to watch!"

[to a peacefully sleeping person ] -- "Good moring, Mx. ___, this is your wake-up call. Please move your ass."

"I say we run for it" -- "Running isn't a plan, runnin's what you do when a plan fails!"

"... Normal Illinois, is that on the map?" -- "Yes, Sergeant, it is." -- "... is it normal in Normal?" -- "... Uneventful, I think, is the word."

"Now-- how many brahmin does it take to make a stampede? Is it like... three or more? Is there a minimum speed?" -- "Wish a stampede up your ass."

"I don't mind being a secret of yours."

[Right after THE BIG FUCKING KISS] ".... let's not make it a year before the next one, okay?"

"If we were serious about money, we'd quit being hired hands--" -- "Handymen! We are han-dee-men." -- "Oh whatever! We'd quit this and go find some real money."

"Please... don't go where I can't follow."

"Alone is fine! I can do alone, it's worrying after them that's got me all wound up!" -- "Have you considered that's because alone is NOT FINE and you don't wanna do it anymore?" -- "---!!"

"This is not the first time you've been here." -- "We've been down this road before, that is correct." -- "Several times, in fact." -- "I hadn't been keeping count."

"And you must be ___, I've heard all about you." -- "I deny everything."

"First time I saw you? I thought to myself, that's the kind of person BRICK WALLS jump outta the way of." -- "Figured you'd be safer behind me rather than in front of me?" -- "Damn right."

"Just keep looking at that beautiful sky; that's the sky that'll be over our roof when we're done." -- "What if we don't finish the roof? Then we can look at the sky all the time."

"Yeah, well... maybe a friend is what I need right now."

"Next thing you know the Feds will be at our door; Sorry, time to move out, Eminent Domain." -- "Down honey, down."

"Even a heat-seeking missile can miss a target." -- "... you taped so many hot-plates to the test target you could fry an egg at 20 feet, and it STILL missed by a mile."

"My dear, my darling, love of my life...." -- "What do you want?"

"What I mean to say is... you make here a better place to be. For me. Easier. Does that make sense?"

"Calm down, you make it sound like a war." -- "What do you people have against being prepared?!"

"This is not just a report, it's a deadly weapon." -- "Sir, an M-16 is a deadly weapon. A report is just a pile of paper, unless you plan to inflict a lot of extremely vicious paper cuts."

"Stupid son of a bitch, knocked himself out cold..." -- "Cold my ass, he's dead."

"Y'know, in baseball, a guy who hits .400 is consider pretty damn great." -- "In baseball the losing team isn't killed by their opponents."

"Hey... I love you. Did I tell you that today?"

This post is going online at 8 PM, June 24th, 2021, US Pacific time. The askbox will open for requests until 6 PM, June 25th, 2021, US Pacific Time. Get yours in now!

Arting will begin at 9 AM tomorrow morning, see you then! :D

-Loor

[daisylincs]

Author Interview Tag

Tagged By: so, long story short... these tags happened right as I was getting super busy with end-of-the-year-craziness, and I completely didn't see them until I was re-scrolling through all my mentions on Tumblr recently. So the people who initially tagged me have probably forgotten they even did (🤣😬🤦‍♀️) but my my count, they would be: @loved-the-stars-too-fondly, @libbyweasley, @aleksandrachaev, and @everythingirl44. Thank you very much indeed, all of you!! This looks like an absolutely amazing challenge, late as I may be to it.

Name: Lily

Fandom(s): Agents of SHIELD (TV) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Where You Post: AO3, and the occasional drabble/prompt fill to Tumblr - which, upon consideration, I should probably collect on AO3 🤔

Most Popular Oneshot: for Spideychelle, and overall too, apparently it's my, my, just how much I missed you, my surprisingly angsty (but with a hopeful ending) ten-years-post-FFH fic for Day 4 of Spideychelle Week.

For AoS, it's time can break your heart, have you begging please which, to be entirely 100% honest with you, I completely forgot I wrote in the first place 🤣🙈 It's post-7x10 angst on... that 7x10 and very spoilery death, with some Dousy hurt/comfort. Apparently, Dousy hurt/comfort is the rage, so... that's cool, I suppose.

Most Popular Multichapter Fic: just a few weeks ago, I would have responded with something like, "multichap? Me? As if 😳😅" But now... well, I'm actually posting my first multi-chapter fic later today, so we'll see how that goes!!

Favourite Story You've Written So Far: oh, gosh, that's a really, really hard one!! I've really, really enjoyed almost everything I've written, so picking is going to be very tough cookies xD

For AoS, I think I'm going to go for take my hand, take my whole life too, which is one of the first few things I wrote, but still holds a very special place in my heart, because I felt that it was a fic I could really be proud of, you know? Plus, it made me feel ridiculously soft and shippy-happy throughout the writing process. Plus plus, it has an absolutely stunning banner created by the amazing @ughfitz, which still touches me a lot, because I'd never had such a beautiful banner made before and askjgddfshhdhh it's just perfect.

I'm also very partial to july second, the birthday fic I wrote for @doctorofaos - because Hunter's point of view, it turns out, is ridiculously fun to write, and I had an absolute ball. The whole arc - a surprise birthday party for Daisy, and some team bonding/family fluff - just really works for me, too.

Another one that has to go on this list is hold out your hand, 'cause friends will be friends, my DaisyMack Soulmates BroTP, because that one is my amazing wife @aleksandrachaev's favourite, and it melts my heart so much to hear how much she likes it. 💜

Then lastly, for Spideychelle, my favourite thing I've written is quintessential spideychelle, no contest - it's a Roommates AU and my birthday gift for @eowima, and all the bonding those two dorks do over Lucifer and fandom in general brings me endless delight.

My Aladdin AU, now when did you last let your heart decide, will also always hold a special place in my heart, because it's the first really long thing I wrote. I put a ton of effort into it, and, well, I still think it's kinda fab.

(also I'm so sorry for the relentless self-plug that turned into, oh my God, apparently I'm just that indecisive and love talking that much. I apologise once again)

Fic You Were Nervous To Post: Aubrey, high-five! Because one of the things I was definitely the most freaked out for was that is good, my first-ever Quakerider fic and birthday gift for @acerobbiereyes. The response to that turned out to be overwhelmingly positive, though, and I have even made promises to venture into Quakerider-land again 🥰

I was also a little stressed for we love you, we love you, and we hope you love we too, which was my first-ever polyship fic - Fitzskimmons and cute notes for the fluff bingo - and something I also dedicated to the amazing @bobbimorseisbisexual. Also the formatting for this thing was HELL, and computers and I do not get along, so I was in cold sweats that it wouldn't work and fail on me completely... but, no, it worked, and the wonderful response to it too, very much melted my heart 🥺💖

How You Choose Your Titles: song lyrics. Almost always song lyrics. And if it's not song lyrics, it's a quote of some kind - it just works for me, and I actually find it fun to go hunt for something that works. Maybe I'm weird, but I actually do love it xD

Do You Outline? absolutely, yes - in fact, a great many of the things in my WIPs folder are solely outlines, or even just the beginnings of outlines. I find that outlines are a really good way to save your ideas if you don't have time to write them out properly, so you can come back months later and be all, "what the hell I'm actually so clever." (or, y'know, occasionally, "what the hell can the earth come swallow me up." But let's go with the cleverness 🤣👌)

In Progress:

... I think it's better that we don't talk about my WIPs folder, which, as most people who know anything about me can tell you, is an utter mess, and more than a little insane. (If you don't believe me, check it out here - I bet you do now, right?)

Out of that monstrosity, I'm currently working on numbers 20, 64, 192 and 174, which would be my Skimmons Hallmark Rom-Com, and fics for my three Secret Santas - Spideychelle, Fitzsimmons, and then one for the AoS Secret Santa whose pairing is, in delightfully SHIELD style, classified until the 24th of December.

Then in the very background, I'm also writing some Pipsy, Fitzsimmons and plat!Diper for the fluff bingo yes which I have still not finished I'm awful I know, and I'm going to make my lateness a liiiitle better by passing them of as gifts for my friends. I do love my friends very much, though, so that's more than fair I think 🥺💜

My Complete AO3: ta!

Do You Accept Prompts? yes, always! I have this plan in the back of my mind of gathering up all the prompt lists I've got saved to my drafts and doing like a masterpost/mass prompt request thing, but I'll leave that for a little later yet, because goodness knows I have enough to finish 🙈 In the meantime, though, if there's anything you'd really like to see me write, I'd be just thrilled to do it for you! It'll definitely take me a couple of months to actually get to it, but if you don't mind the wait, then yes, absolutely, I'm your girl! 💖

Upcoming Work That You're Most Excited About: oooooof, another tough one, but I'm very much looking forward to posting the first chapter of my Skimmons Hallmark Rom-Com, which I'm going to do later today!!

Then there's also my three Secret Santas - though I'm not particularly religious, the idea of a gift fic exchange brings me endless glee and I cannot wait to see what my giftees think! I also can't wait to get my own gifts, too, of course... ;) Oh, it's just going to be so much FUN!!

Tagging: well, everyone did this a couple of weeks months ago, so I'm not actually going to tag anyone - but if you see this and think it's cool, by all means go ahead and say I tagged you! 😍 Also, have a very big virtual hug, all of you, and thank you so much for reading through all my blathering!! 💜💖

[pers-books]

I was tagged by @thisbluespirit - thanks, hon!

Name: pers-books on Tumblr / Persiflage on AO3 / persiflage_1 on LJ

Fandoms: These days the Berena corner of Holby City. I am largely mono-fannish. I might write the occasional crossover fic, but those are very much a rarity and a general rule, once I move on to writing in a new fandom, I don’t go back to write for an old one. It’s just the way the Bitch Muse works. 

Fandoms I read, however, are multiple. Although I suppose I should say it’s particular ships within a fandom as I tend not to read much outside of a particular ship EXCEPT for Doctor Who - because I have multiple ships in DW, though I mostly only wrote Martha Jones/The Doctor when I was writing Who fic, I read far more ships and also some non-shippy fics (mostly those written by @thisbluespirit!). Currently I read for ships in Doctor Who, Star Trek: Discovery, The Murderbot Diaries (non shippy in that instance!), Warehouse 13, Silent Witness (when I spot some Jill Raymond fic), and whatever else either takes my fancy or I get asked to beta-read. (Just because I’m not in a fandom, doesn’t mean I can’t beta-read it for you. I can at least do a Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar check, and also check for narrative flow, consistency, and for plot holes!)

Where you post: To AO3 these days. Though the Mashed Up Tropes meme fics have been posted here first.

Most popular one-shot: Action and Reaction (Star Trek: Discovery) - 101 Kudos

Most popular multi-chapter: The Red String of Fate (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)) - 171 Kudos

Fic you were nervous to post: Actually all of them to a certain extent, but especially the first fic in a new-to-me fandom. Also anything I’ve written for a special occasion/request (eg for a fandom event or someone’s birthday. And also anything I’ve written that’s outside my norm/my comfort zone (eg written in the second person or from an outsider PoV or the Agents of SHIELD one with almost no dialogue (Everyone Gets Attached to Something).

How do you choose your titles? Gods, I don’t know. Whatever seems to fit. For my Berena Secret Santa I went with a quote from Shakespeare that lives in my head in perpetuity (What’s past is prologue) (I have a lot of Shakespeare in my head, by the way!) - but it’s not often I use a quote.

Do you outline? Not as a rule these days. I find if I outline it stops me from writing the fic. I try to just hold the idea in the back of my head until the Bitch Muse compels me to write it!

Complete: On AO3 594. There are a helluva lot of Doctor Who fics on my LJ that I’ve never bothered to transfer over, though. Hundreds of them - which is why I’ve not bothered to transfer them. If I added them then I’d probably have at least 1000 as I was very prolific in the DW fandom back in the day. (It was my first fandom.)

Do you take prompts? Yes. Ish. I’m still open for taking the Mashed Up Trope fic prompts if anyone wants to suggest some via an Ask (and yes, I’m aware I have five or six outstanding ones. I promise I’ve not forgotten.) Otherwise, if you want to send me a prompt, if you’ve got a particular idea you’d like to see me write Berena fic for, then send me an Ask, Anon or otherwise. Or contact me via Tumblr’s messaging service. I cannot absolutely guarantee to write something, mind - it very much depends on the Bitch Muse, as always! But I am open to being Asked.

In progress: *snorts* Dozens of the bloody things, the Bitch Muse’s vagaries being what they are! 

Coming soon: Right now I’m trying to finish up another Stocking Filler for the Berena Secret Santa. I’d like to get it done by Xmas Day, but given The Day I’ve had today, I cannot absolutely guarantee to manage that. I’m about half way done (and it’s over well over 5k words so far!). And, if the library coughs up the books I’ve requested for background reading (and the Bitch Muse doesn’t lose interest in the interim!), Busker!Bernie will be forthcoming some time in 2021. 

Tagging: As always, don’t feel obliged to play if you don’t want to: @slightlyintimidating, @rauzadian, @lapalfruity, @corvidden, @doctorjameswatson. @professorflimflam, @wonkots42, @ktlsyrtis, @ariverandasong

[antimatterpod]

Transcript - 72. What About Manperson?

This transcript is SO LARGE that the first eight attempts to share it broke Tumblr. (Tumblr, sweetheart, it’s a plain text file, if Usenet and dial-up could handle it, I’m sure you can cope.)

You can listen to the original episode here.

Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. This week, we're taking a trip back to 1977 to discuss a write up of a panel on 'feminism in Treklit'.

Liz: And I pushed for this one because I promised us [an episode about] zines, and I had misremembered where the zine archive was. And then I stumbled across this essay, and it was so interesting and wild, and I figured we could probably get some discussion out of it.

Anika: Absolutely. I just want to start by saying that 'Treklit' is the cutest little word ever.

Liz: I know!

Anika: 'Treklit'. I love it so much.

Liz: And there's no, "Oh, no, we mustn't call it literature. It's just fan fiction" about it. Because there were no tie-in novels back then, there were just a handful of novelizations and so forth. So go for it, ladies!

Anika: Really bad ones, too.

Liz: Yeah, yeah.

Anika: I've read those. They're bad.

Liz: The panelists in this discussion were Sharon Ferraro, who was a zine publisher, fic writer and con organizer, and Jean Lorrah, a fic writer, novelist and editor, who would go on to write tie-in fiction, including The Vulcan Academy Murders and the TNG novel Survivors, which we discussed in our tie-in fiction episode. And this panel took place at SekwesterCon in 1976. It was tape-recorded by one fan and written up by the [convention] organizers for a zine.

Anika: Which is also adorable.

Liz: I know! And it sounds like just the whole room got into it. And it was so interesting! I can only imagine the drama if this panel was held today, because they sit down and start calling out authors and fics by name and title. And one of the authors stands up and argues back. And it's just wildly interesting, and a snapshot of fandom, and fic writing fandom, at the time.

Anika: Amazing. You put that note, you know, "Can you imagine if this panel was held today," and I was thinking about it, I was like, it sort of is, but it's in social media and in comments.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: But like, even there, there's not really so much of a -- there's a lot of discourse, you know how we use that word now, "discourse", sort of to mean something completely different than what it actually means.

But if there's that there's still sort of this, etiquette to it, I would say. If someone leaves you a nasty comment on a fic and you didn't ask for it, everybody will come in and say, "That was inappropriate, you shouldn't have done that."

And even online, if you're going to say, "Oh, I've just read this horrible Star Trek fan fiction, it was so bad and so ridiculous," like you don't use the names and you don't link to it. You protect the anonymity of the person. And so it's sort of like, yeah, even even though we can still be just as vicious and just as critical, there is sort of this accepted way of doing things.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: That this discussion sort of flies in the face of, which is interesting, it's like, huh, you know, they can you can go both ways on that. That has pros and cons.

Liz: Yeah, there was a discussion on Twitter a few weeks ago about racism in fandom and on AO3. One person cited a very specific Michael/Lorca slavery AU, and I knew exactly which fic she was talking about. And I have shared her opinion, and that fic is vile, and I hate it. And I hate that it's on AO3 and there's no way to block it when I search for Lorca fic.

But no one was linking to it. No one was saying this to the author's face. Apparently people have tried to go, "This is a very bad idea for a fic," and she's just like, "LOL, whatevs!"

We are critical. But there's also just too many people in fandom to get all of us in a room or on one mailing list to be part of this discussion.

Anika: It's so interesting that you mention mailing lists, because I was there for the mailing list, um, Trek stuff. And I do remember, you know, there was a lot of -- I guess it was like camps, you know, people who would be on one side or the other of a discussion. And that could get pretty intense sometimes. I don't have any -- it was sort of the end of it when I was involved, so I feel like I witnessed the move from email list to online, I don't know--

Liz: Blogs.

Anika: Yeah, like blogs and all, your own space, I guess.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: As opposed to -- we would like email each other our fan fictions, and they wouldn't go anywhere else, it would just be on this email list, and the copy of the email list that was in Yahoogroups, or whatever.

Liz: And if you were, for example, part of a Janeway/Chakotay group, you weren't necessarily with your friends or people you knew. Certainly for me, my first mailing group was JetC22, and I just signed up and was allocated to this particular group. And there were some people there that I liked very much, and there were some people there that I really, really disliked. And--

Anika: Right.

Liz: --from there that gave me a foundation to go to the people I did like, "Hey, let's start our own group with hookers and booze."

Anika: Right. It's amazing and crazy to think, "Oh, we could just all have a conversation in one room and discuss it all." And that was cool.

Liz: I'm sort of glad that we don't have to go back to those days, but at the same time, like, I like to think that these ladies would look at my fic and go, "Oh, yeah, she's totally feminist by the standards of 1976."

Because the essay starts off, "Feminism in much of Treklit can be regarded as non-existent, particularly in GRUP type stories." And GRUP was an adult content zine which took its name from the slang for grown ups in the TOS episode "Miri. And I'm like, I can't think of a worse thing to name your smut zine.

Anika: I know! That's so, so bad. I'm turned off immediately, but that's just me here in 2021.

Liz: Right. And it's interesting that they're complaining here that the smut fic was very much generic, which I think is still a complaint these days. Sometimes you read a fic and you're like, "I don't think that really taught me anything new about the characters, I have no insight into how this author feels about them, save that she's sort of mashing her action figures together." Which is not a bad thing, but it's not what I enjoy in fic

Anika: Right, it's definitely not what I enjoy in fic. I think that my interests are very well known at this point, and it's pretty much never sex.

Liz: No.

Anika: So. Oh, well!

Liz: It goes on to say, "Some stories are anti-feminist in that women are segregated out of them. Action is all concerned with the male characters. And the implication is that women are not liable to participate in such matters." I like to think that fandom has moved on.

Anika: Well...

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Yes. Yes, fandom has moved on, but has society?

Liz: Well, no. I think what's notable here is that they're not specifically talking about slash fic, they're probably talking about, I guess what in the X-Files fandom was called case files or casefics, where it's basically, "I'm writing a Star Trek episode, but in prose format." And they're sort of reflecting The Original Series in that it is very dudely.

Anika: Yeah, absolutely.

Liz: You know, we say, "Oh, fandom is so subversive, fic is about reclaiming the narrative." But honestly, some people write fic because they like the narrative and they want more of it. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but if you're not applying a critical eye to your source then maybe you're reproducing its problems.

Anika: Hmm, it's interesting. I mean, I just said I, I have very specific likes and dislikes. And there's a lot of stuff like -- casefic, I don't really need, because I can watch the show for that. But curtain fic, which is, like --

Liz: The domestic...

Anika: -- the characters just, like washing the dishes or arguing about Netflix, like that. I eat it up. That's my favorite thing. There's no saving the world, there's just, "We saved the world, and now we're going home to relax and, and decompress--"

Liz: Yes.

Anika: "-- and do whatever we want to do." Like, those are the fics that I like.

Liz: And "what happens after you save the world?" is a good story.

Anika: It's not subversive, but it is something that's not in the fiction as it stands.

Liz: I think it is subversive in a small way, because you're adding the domesticity which has been excluded from the primary narrative, and in doing so, highlighting that it, too, has value.

Anika: It definitely has value.

Liz: I really like casefic that's character-driven, that's about the people. And I used to have that itch scratched by tie-in fiction, and it doesn't so much anymore -- Una McCormack, thank God, she exists. But, yeah, it's not really something we see so much now that tie-in fiction exists.

And also, I think there's a stronger impetus to file serial numbers off and turn a fic into an original work. And if you're going into all the effort of writing a plot anyway, just throw in that little bit more effort and make it original. I feel like there's less need for casefic.

Anika: Yeah, I agree. But I don't search it out, so maybe it's there, and I just don't read it.

Liz: Yeah, possibly. I have this idea for a Lorca/Cornwell casefic, where they're in their thirties, and they have to go undercover as a married couple on, like, a human settlement that's outside of the Federation. And the reason I haven't started writing it is that I'm like, well, it's not very shippy, so where's where's the hook?

Anika: "Right. So why am I doing it?"

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: I get that.

Liz: The essay goes on, "Other fics concern women, but in a very negative light," and they go on to discuss two fics in particular. One has the rather spectacular title of "Murder, Rape and Other Unsocial Acts". And it's -- I looked it up, it has a Fanlore page of its own. -- it's about a Klingon family, and there's a lot of comedy rape because it's the '70s. And ... yeah, it seems like something that would not really fly these days, and obviously, it was subject to criticism at the time.

And the other fic is titled "An Abortive Attempt", in which a human gynecologist is effectively extradited to Vulcan to face charges for performing an abortion on a Vulcan woman.

Anika: Amazing!

Liz: This is such a specifically 1970s concept. And I have to disagree that this is not a feminist story. This, to me, is a wildly feminist story. Just because something bad happens to a woman -- I'm guessing that this -- I couldn't find it online, but I'm assuming that this is not actually pro-life propaganda, and therefore it is a feminist story, defending choice. I guess? Probably?

Anika: I guess. It's amazing that -- just thinking about, you know, what do Vulcans think about abortion is like -- oh, my goodness! What a great thing.

Liz: Because we would go, "Well, obviously reproductive rights and controlling fertility down to the micro level is very logical." Pardon me, I'm losing my voice. We would think that extreme reproductive rights and micromanaging fertility is very logical.

But then you think, "Well, they've got these arranged marriages, and it's really hard to get a divorce, and Spock is actually quite sexist in The Original Series." He's sort of the logic over feelings guy, as opposed to feminist Jim Kirk, who's like, "But feelings, Spock! They have their place. Women! They're so beautiful!" So, for the '70s, it's a logical extrapolation of Vulcan culture

Anika: Of pro-life Vulcans?

Liz: I guess?

Anika: I mean, yeah, I get it, I get it, but it's also -- I can't imagine it would happen very often on Vulcan, just because they know their cycles so well -- that sounds so weird. And so, if something came up, I feel like there would be a logical reason for it to be needed. I don't know. I just I feel like you could use logic to come up with [a reason] why you should have an abortion easier than why you shouldn't.

Liz: No, I agree. Like, I kind of perceive the Star Trek universe as being a lot like Lois McMaster Bujold's future, where we just control fertility so well and we have extra-uterine gestation anyway, so unwanted pregnancies aren't really an issue for people very often?

Anika: We can only hope.

Liz: It's a nice idea. But it's just interesting to me that this fic is such a reflection of the time in which it's written. And in twenty years, will people be looking back -- on their podcast that's broadcast straight into people's brains -- and going, "Wow, there were a lot of fics about gay marriage back then. Gosh, that's such a product of its time."

Anika: Oh, my goodness. I mean, again, we can only hope.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: I would love for our progressive future to actually be progressive.

Liz: Yes, yes! I would love to do a thesis on something or something about tracking social progress through issues in fan fiction and depictions in fan fiction. One day, when I have time to do a PhD, and can also go to Iowa to go through their zine archive.

Anika: Cool.

Liz: Then we get to the discussion of specifically anti-feminist stories. And here they discuss a fic called "How About a Raffle?" in which -- it's a Kirk/Uhura fic, and Kirk accidentally sells Uhura into slavery.

Anika: Yikes. I don't think that just happens. Like I was gonna say it happens, but no. No, that's not not true. It doesn't just happen.

Liz: They're dealing with some Orions, and Uhura enters a dance contest, but it turns out that the winner is, like, the top slave or something.

Anika: Oh my God.

Liz: It's still racist.

Anika: I like the attempt to world build for the Orions

Liz: Don't get carried away. Mary Louise Dodge, the author, quote, "Rose and astonished the floor by stating that they were anti-feminist, and anyway, the Orion dancers were only humanoid, not human or intelligent."

Anika: Big yikes!

Liz: Big yikes indeed!

Anika: That is straight up from, you know, stories about masters--

Liz: Straight up slavery?

Anika: Yeah. Like, you know, and, yeah, bad. Bad. Don't ever go there ever. [laughs] I don't want to be an anti...

Liz: Well, it's interesting! I looked up Mary Louise Dodge, and she was involved in fandom for a really long time. She was on the Welcommittee, she ran the mailroom, she organized cons. She wrote a lot of fic. And I feel like we would have crossed paths, had I been in fandom at the time, because she was very much a het writer. And she wrote a lot of Kirk/Uhura, which I probably would have shipped back then.

And she was very vocally anti-slash and anti-porn. I've actually put a note here, that I guess you could call her fandom's first anti. After one con, she wrote a famous letter to a bunch of zines, complaining that there was smut -- smutty zines and smutty art openly displayed on the floor and in the art show. And, you know, "why can't we get back to the good wholesome values of the 1960s?"

Anika: Yay for concern trolling having a deep history.

Liz: You know, I do think smut should be opt-in. And certainly, she is the person responsible for, like, age statements in zines and stuff. And there were a lot of things in fan culture at the time that wouldn't be acceptable today, like dressing up as Spock and Kirk's erect penises. Can you imagine going to, like, Comic Con in that costume?

Anika: And seeing that?

Liz: Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, like, she's not talking about consent, she's talking about -- she just hates smut and hates slash, and is quite deeply homophobic.

Anika: Right.

Liz: And doesn't apologize, which I enjoy, but I've sort of started thinking of her as the Phyllis Schlafly of fandom.

Anika: You're Wrong About, the podcast, just did a deep dive into Tipper Gore versus, you know, like heavy metal, basically,

Liz: It's sitting in my podcast feed, but the Reply All expose on Bon Appetit came up and took precedence.

Anika: I understand your priorities. But it really reminds me of all this stuff. Not just what we're talking about here with Mary Louise, but also with the whole anti culture now.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And even in academia, the idea that should you put a content warning or not on your syllabus? And there is a difference between opting in, like, having it having it be clear what something is, versus censorship.

Liz: Yes!

Anika: And it's like, we've been talking about this for fifty years, and we still haven't figured that out. And it's just really interesting.

And the issue is that if you look at what Mary Louise has problems with, versus what Tipper Gore has problems with, versus what the whole anti-Reylo crowd have problems with, it's like the bar shifts, but what it comes down to is, "I don't like this, and therefore, it shouldn't be a part of society."

Liz: Yeah, as opposed to, "I don't like this, therefore, I don't want to see it."

Anika: Right. Which is the whole argument for, you know, using tags.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And using databases and having the little sticker that says explicit lyrics. It's not hurting anyone. But if there was like -- they wanted the occult stickers, and it's like, guys, you can't just go around saying, you know, "This is the occult." There are certain things that are subjective, and you can't decide to have a label that has that level of subjectivity.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah.

Anika: That's a slippery slope towards, you know, "Oh, now we're gonna have Muslim stickers, or we're gonna have Jewish stickers." You know, it gets really bad really quickly.

Liz: And there are certainly parts of America where Catholicism would get an occult sticker.

Anika: Exactly. So it's just really -- there are levels. And this is a conversation that, like I said, we've been having for a long time, and I think we're going to continue having for a long time.

Liz: I think it's good that we keep having this conversation, because the context is always changing. And we need to keep examining it.

Anika: As much as we were talking about the Lorca and Michael slave fic, that I'm not going to read and I'm not going to encourage in any way. But I also am not going to say she can't write it or post it. I just want to opt out.

And the same with Mary Louise and her "Let's accidentally sell Uhura into slavery." Like, that's nothing I ever want to read, and I'm kind of upset hearing about it. But okay, you're, you're allowed to do that. I don't want to read it. And I want to know that it's gonna happen so that I don't have to read it.

Liz: And, you know, the problem with AO3 is that there is no way to block this author, or to stop this fic from appearing in every single tag that the author applies. And I think particularly blocking someone is an option that they really need. When you look at zines, it's much, much harder to avoid -- unless you only subscribe to zines whose editors won't publish Mary Louise Dodge. And I'm sure that there were some, she seems to have been incredibly polarizing. But what if you want, you know, Nice Hetfic Zine issue three, and it has five great stories and one Mary Louise Dodge?

Anika: Right, exactly. The reason that we keep talking about it is there's no easy answer. There's just compromises. And it's hard. It's a thorny question.

Liz: And for the record, I would have subscribed to Nice Hetfic Zine issue three. And then I would have written a snarky letter to its letter column complaining about Mary Louise Dodge and her terrible fic, because that was acceptable at the time.

Anika: Exactly. That's the other thing. It's so interesting.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: It's so interesting. And then, you know, comments on AO3 are like I would say at least eighty percent positive.

Liz: Yeah. And I think that's because comments are for the author. Whereas this is a review culture rather than a feedback culture.

Anika: Oooh, that's good.

Liz: So the discussion is less -- it's more readers talking to readers, than readers talking to writers.

Anika: Yes. That's another thing that I kind of wish we still had, fanfic treated as -- like, I would love to read some reviews or a deep dive into one author's recurring themes, or something like that. I would be super into it. I understand that people wouldn't like it -- the authors. But I would love it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if people did it for me.

Liz: I was just going to say, the themes of domesticity -- and you write a lot of baby fic, but it's not because [you're going], "Oh, babies are so cute. I love children!" I'm sure you do, babies are cute. But it's about, "What do we, as flawed parents, pass on to our children? And how do we make them better than -- how do we make their lives better than what we've had?" And this seems to recur in all of your fics that I've read in any fandom.

Anika: So strange that I'm obsessed with the relationship between parents and children and their parents! Mm, so strange. And trauma. I know the things that I focus on. I focus on adoption, I focus on identity. I focus on sibling relationships. Like, these are things that are -- I think I've said before that everything I write is actually about me. I don't have to put a Mary Sue in anything, a nd I don't have very many original characters. But I one hundred percent give Katrina Cornwell my own backstory.

Liz: Right. And I've seen that in your fic. She -- often in your fics, she has lost a parent at a young age, and is dealing with that even into adulthood. But it doesn't feel like, oh, yeah, that's just Anika putting her own thing on Kat. It feels like exploring.

Anika: Yeah. Yeah, at least that's my intention. But yeah, so I would love to be even a part of like, a book club, or something where we meet each other and talk about it. Like, I think that would be so fun. And I'm sort of sad that that culture doesn't exist anymore.

Liz: It's sort of like how bookmarks on AO3 are for readers rather than writers. And sometimes, like, there's a piece of feedback that was attached -- it wasn't feedback, it was just a note attached to a bookmark of one of my fics that said, "really good handling of disability." And I was like, "This is the greatest feedback I have ever not really received."

But the other thing is, quite a few years ago, in Doctor Who fandom, I created a sock puppet and started reviewing the fics that were nominated for an award. It started out as a very mean, bitchy sort of thing to do, because I thought that the fics being nominated were not award-worthy -- note my own fics were nominated. So I was not a neutral observer.

But I wound up finding like it was a really interesting way of reading outside of my usual field and going, "Okay, well, this is a Ten/Rose fic, and I don't ship that. And this fic is almost entirely made up of things that don't resonate with me at all, and now I understand why I don't read this fit this sort of in this genre. But this is actually a really good fic, and I think that if you were a Ten/Rose shipper, you would really like it."

And then, you know, one of my so called friends revealed my identity on an anon meme, and there was wank, and people still think I'm one of the worst people in Doctor Who fandom which, yeah, it was a whole thing. I don't recommend doing this. It was not great. But in terms of reviewing fics as pieces of literature, it was a really interesting experience. And I actually had people say, "Hey, will you review my fic?"

Anika: I don't use beta readers very often, because I have a very particular way of writing, and I like my style, and I don't want to change it. So I don't give it to people and say, "Does this make sense? Did I forget something? You know, is this good?" I just don't need someone to tell me that before it's published.

Liz: Yep.

Anika: But once it's published, I would love someone to read it and critique it. I don't know why.

Liz: You are flying without a wire!

Anika: I just don't want to change it while I'm writing it. But I would love to know what people think of it after the fact.

Liz: That's -- that's very interesting!

And I do use a beta reader -- hi, I know you're listening -- because I have this problem where I don't close quotation marks, and she's very good at finding stuff like that. And she also knows when to tell me that I'm disappearing up my own butt, and when I am doing something really cool that she's enjoying, and I appreciate that. I appreciate you a lot.

Back to the essay, Jean Lorrah replied that it was not the treatment of the Orion women that was irritating, but Kirk's condescending good old boy attitude, "the cute little girl is drunk," and that that attitude coming from the female characters was unfortunately common in Trek literature. "Do my thinking for me."

Anika: Yeah.

Liz: They sort of move on to original characters. And apparently there was a trend of pairing off McCoy with a sweet, innocent eighteen-year-old girls.

Anika: Again, I don't want to be an anti. But why? What is that about?

Liz: Yeah, it's not the sort of thing that I find appealing.

Anika: My note here is just "yikes". I mean, doesn't McCoy have an eighteen-year-old daughter?

Liz: Yes. And according to Mary Louise, there was a lot of fic where he slept with his daughter. And I know--

Anika: No, no.

Liz: But because I don't fully trust Mary Louise is a source, I'm like, is that one fic she saw and it was an outlier and probably written to shock, like the notorious Draco/Lucius skullfucking fic, or was it an actual trend? And I'm pretty sure I really--

Anika: I'm disturbed. But I'm also like, wow, what was going on? What was that about? I'm very curious. I mean, I guess because McCoy is the oldest, and is the most paternal, but he's also the most, like, I don't want to say feminine, but, like, feminine.

Liz: He's a very caring person.

Anika: And so it's interesting. It's very interesting, you know, and I could definitely imagine being an eighteen-year-old girl, and deciding that I wanted to date, McCoy. Or like, I could imagine, of all of the people in Star Trek, he would be the best relationship, I can sort of see it going that way, and ending up with this crazy fic. But if it was a trend ... I'm just so interested. It's so weird.

Liz: And the thing is, these weren't eighteen-year-old girls generally writing these fics, these were, like housewives?

Anika: Yeah, housewives.

Liz: Yeah, adult women.

Anika: It's like the whole "Twilight is read by teenage girls and their mothers" thing.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: This is what it sounds like. To me.

Liz: This is not to disparage either housewives or mothers who read Twilight, because I feel like housewives, stereotypically, and middle aged women are as dismissed as teenage girls. But it's just interesting.

Anika: And they don't make anybody any money.

Liz: There's a very nice remark here. "Some of the reasons for badly drawn female characters is simply bad writing, and male characters are just as unrealistic, but this can improve." And then they talk about a specific series again, it looks like a series, like, pairing Sarek with a lady named Lorna. So Sarek gets his own Mary Sue.

Anika: I have to go off on a tangent on this because Lorna is a very specific name. It's pretty old fashioned at this point, like now, but my last name, Dane, is taken from Lorna Dane, who was an X Men character created in 1968. She was introduced in 1968, but then she joined the team in the late '70s. So Lorna Dane is Polaris, and she is Magneto's daughter, at least seventy-five percent of the time.

Liz: Right. His kids seem to have fluctuating identities.

Anika: And she's my favorite X Men, X Men, X Woman, whatever. X. My favorite X. So when I was published in a book of comic book essays, I was published under the name Anika Dane Milik. And so when I got divorced, and I changed my name, I just went to Dane.

Liz: That makes sense. Yes.

Anika: But it's like, it's Lorna, it's Lorna Dane, that's who it is. And this idea that this character that was created in the mid to late '70s, as Sarek's wife after Amanda died, I'm like, so, Sarek is now a part of my identity. And I am really excited about that! And apparently, Lorna's last name is Mitchell, so it's like Gary Mitchell's daughter, Lorna. But she's from the past. Everything about it is amazing. Everything about this, I had to look it up, and I'm so excited by the whole idea.

Liz: This sounds fantastic.

Anika: I love it. I love it, and now I get to be, in some universes, married to Sarek.

Liz: I am deeply sorry for you.

Then they go on to remark that from Lorna in one fic to Lorna in another, "there has been a vast elevation of consciousness". And it's like, as I read that, like my clothes turned into flares and my hair centre-parted... just peak '77

Anika: Yeah, you started hearing … what's that song from Hair.

Liz: Oh, I was dreaming about Hair last night.

Anika: It was like in my head. But, you know, the morning song.

Liz: Yeah, yeah.

Anika: "In the... nah, nah, nah." That song. Anyway, you start hearing that song, I start hearing that song, just can't remember the lyrics.

And that sentence is also so supremely Lorna Dane. The reason that I love Lorna Dane so much is that she's completely different every single time you meet her. She has all of these like, weird relationships with her parents, both Magneto and then her adoptive parents. Her relationships are all crazy. And she never feels good enough, and she's an only child, and all she ever wants is siblings. And she's -- there's so much. And it's literally crazy. I mean, everything in the X Men is crazy. But she is, by far, one of the most -- like just the fact that every other story she's either Magneto's daughter or not is enough.

Liz: Honestly, I'm getting very powerful Wanda Maximoff vibes from this?

Anika: Oh, yeah, exactly.

Liz: I find it interesting that Magneto's daughters tend to be sort of very fluid, dynamic characters whose personalities and backstories are always changing.

Anika: And going back to something we were just discussing in this essay, there's this sort of idea that Magneto can be super powerful, and be able to destroy the planet at a whim, and he is very serious and sad, and we have a lot of respect for him even if we don't agree with him.

Whereas Wanda and Lorna have the same amount of power and can destroy things, and they are crazy. And they need to be, have to be--

Liz: They're unstable and they need to be stopped.

Anika: --locked up, and are a danger to themselves and others. And it's like, okay, so Magneto definitely tried to take over the world four times, but he's not a danger to himself or others? You created an entire prison for him that no one else would ever need, yet he's not considered crazy or unstable or dangerous the way that Wanda and Lorna are.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: That's a thing.

Liz: The next note in this essay is that a common theme in feminist Treklit is responsibility, and stories about women being given responsibility and handling it properly, or needing to learn responsibility and doing so.

My note here was, "Are women people?" but it turns out that this is a story that the comics and superhero genre, at least, is still grappling with, and I think WandaVision is doing it in a really interesting way. And Wanda's allies are Monica and what's her face? Darcy.

Anika: Darcy

Liz: Yeah. And Jimmy Wu, and to a lesser extent right now, Vision. But these, with one exception, are not white people -- sorry, not white men. And--

Anika: And Vision is played by a white man but I don't -- like he's one of those on the line kind of people.

Liz: Yeah, I'm just -- Paul Bettany...

Anika: He is a white man but he's also not, in the context of the story.

Liz: My feelings about Paul Bettany are very complicated for Johnny Depp reasons. So I'm lukewarm on wanting to see him, ever. But his performance is great, and all. And I just think it's depressing that this [storyline] is still something that media struggles with.

Anika: And it one hundred percent is. It's something that -- I mean, look at Rey.

Liz: Yes. So--

Anika: That's gonna be my answer to everything. Yeah, women are not people is generally the key. Women are vessels that we can put ideas onto, I guess, is the way it goes.

Liz: Yeah. And then the other issue they discuss is issues that are of specific concern to women, or of special concern to women, rather, and they talk about a fic where, quote, "a rape case threatens to obscure the issue of a female officer's rights by triggering an overprotective reaction".

Which, again, going by TOS alone, seems like a pretty valid basis for a fic -- look at look at all those episodes where Janice Rand is attacked, and the only people she has to go to about it are Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Even if it was Kirk's evil double that attacked her.

Anika: It's just bad.

Liz: It's -- yeah.

Anika: Again, I'm really interested in this idea that they wrote -- they were writing stories about rape, and not -- I mean, I haven't read the story, but it doesn't seem like it was sensationalizing rape. It seems like it was, "Hey, this is a thing that happened in canon that didn't get the treatment that I want. And so let's talk about that."

Liz: Yes. "And let's talk about how, not not the rape itself, but the reaction afterwards impedes justice, and recovery." That's super interesting, and still contemporary!

Anika: And still contemporary.

Liz:   And then they talk about Mary Sue, and, you know, everyone on the Enterprise is extraordinary. But if you create a woman who is extraordinary, then she's a Mary Sue. And they debate, you know, do you write a male character and then make it female? Or do you try and create a three dimensional woman? 

And I still see these discussions now, and I'm like, whatever gets you to a good character is a valid technique.

Anika:   A couple of things really jumped out at me. One was "showed some problems Spock could have if he had been female, as well as first officer."

Liz:   Yeah!

Anika:   I'm very picky about gender swap fic. Because it can be done so poorly, so easily.

Liz:   Yes.

Anika:   But that's a really interesting question. If everything was the same, except Spock was a woman, what would that mean? I'm interested in that. And if it was done well, then it could be a really amazing story.

Liz:   Right?

Anika:   So I love that they're bringing these questions up. And then another one was, "when one writes a female officer onto the ship, and part of this usually lies with her occupation: what does she do? Why is she on the ship, and what is her function when she is sent down to the planet?" 

And I'm just like, uh, I'm pretty sure you'd have to ask those questions about any original character that you made up?

Liz:   Yeah. Men can have jobs too!

Anika:   And so what it comes down to is that -- it goes back to the earlier comment about how there weren't women in the show, and the women that were in the show didn't get to do what the men did, that Uhura got to take command once, ever.

Liz:   Yes.

Anika:   And it was too late, basically.

Liz:   And it was in the animated series. Which to an extent--

Anika:   Which, who even watched?

Liz:   Yeah, I don't want to say it doesn't count. But it's only just now being treated as a serious and valid part of the Star Trek universe. Aside from "Yesteryear".

Anika:   So really, it's really interesting that they were sort of asking these questions seriously, amongst themselves, you know, and treating it with any kind of gravity, 'cos (a) I think the answer is obvious.

Liz:   Yes.

Anika:   And (b), we shouldn't have to answer this. What it's just the whole thing of "let's create a male character and, and write it as a man and then switch it at the end." Like, yeah, sure. And if you're not going to do that, which is fine, because gender does have an impact -- or you know, can, I should say can have an impact -- it's okay for someone's gender to have a meaning to them. But you shouldn't have an emotional and intellectual quandary about why this woman is on this ship.

Liz:   If you wouldn't have that same quandary for a male character, why are you having it for this lady?

Anika:   Right! They belong on the ship. That's my answer.

Liz:   She's on the ship because that's her job. It's where Starfleet told her to be, the end.

Anika:   Finally, the one that really, you know, just made me smile. "One dead giveaway of a Mary Sue is when everyone on the ship loves her except Kirk." That is my favorite fun fact that I've never heard before.

Liz:   No, me neither. I've seen Mary Sues where Kirk loves her and Spock doesn't. And I've seen all sorts of Mary Sues, and they're all great.

Anika:   It was just amazing. I I loved that idea. The idea that people are reading a story, and all of a sudden Kirk doesn't like someone, and they're like, "Mary Sue!" And that's it, that character is tainted and you can't see that character as anything other than a Mary Sue. It's just crazy. But amazing. And I'm not saying that it's not true. I just think it's hilarious.

Liz:   I don't think it's a data point that became universal. Like you don't see this in Star Trek Mary Sue litmus tests. Remember litmus tests? Wow. Speaking of fandom history!

Anika:   They were like 80 questions long.

Liz:   I know!

Anika:   And you had to put it in, and then it would tell you if your original character was a Mary Sue or not. And I will tell you, I don't write a lot of original characters, like I said, I never put in any original characters. But I constantly put in my version of canon characters. And the thing is that more than fifty percent of my answers were canon. I wasn't making things up about these people.I was reading the canon, when I was answering the question as my interpretation of the character that I saw on screen.

Liz:   No, this makes perfect sense to me because -- I think it's Seanan McGuire who had an essay on LiveJournal, pointing out that "Mary Sue" is just another word for protagonist.

Anika:   Exactly. So usually I would get, "You are close to the line of crossing over into Mary Sue-dom and you should take away at least one flaw," or, you know, something like that. It's just like, okay!

Liz:   Whatevs!

Anika:   I will tell Gene Roddenberry?

Liz:   Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I need to summon the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to tell him that Sherlock Holmes is a Mary Sue.

Anika:   You know who's a real Mary Sue? Watson.

Liz:   Yes!

Anika:   One hundred percent a Mary Sue.

Liz:   I feel like Holmes is the idealized Mary Sue and Watson is the self insert Mary Sue.

Anika:   Mm, I can see that.

Liz:   "The panel then fled from Mary Sue stories."

Anika:   As did we all.

Liz:   And they talk about how it's difficult to create a good female character, because there aren't many templates to draw from in Star Trek. And--

Anika:   Like I said.

Liz:   Yeah. "There are plenty of strong masculine characters to work from, but very few women."

Anika:   And that's the thing. Again, here in 2021, every woman in Star Trek has been called a Mary Sue at least once.

Liz:   And honestly, most of [the women in TOS] are pretty interesting. Like, they're not necessarily strong people. But generally, they're more complex than we give credit for.

Anika:   Right. So it's --first of all, just stop talking about Mary Sues and let it go. That's that's my take number one. And take number two, just because a woman is a woman and a new character in an old fandom does not mean that they are a Mary Sue automatically.

Liz:   Yeah. 

Then they talk about -- it's sort of a digression, which obviously we're familiar with  here. "Most blonde women were dependent and ineffectual, well, brunettes were usually forceful, and control their own destinies." And they give the example of Majel Barrett, who goes from Number One to Chapel. 

I had never thought of this, and I think overall, as a pattern, it holds for The Original Series. But I also think that there were, you know, existing stereotypes about blondes versus brunettes.

Anika:   Yeah, I don't think that Star Trek--

Liz:   No.

Anika:   I don't think Star Trek created that idea.

Liz:   No, you know, [in] Marilyn Monroe movies, she always has a brunette offsider, who's a lot smarter and more together than she is.

Anika:   So strange, it's like, blondes are more beautiful and have more fun, and people are more interested in them. But the brunettes are the smart ones. And the ones with depth. That is just -- like, this is weird, okay?

Liz:   Unless you get the sort of Hitchcock blonde who is terribly intelligent, but also cold and damaged. And that's Seven of Nine.

Anika:   Yes.

Liz:   But it's also interesting that they cite Chapel, because the whole reason that I wanted to do an episode on zines is that I have a paper copy of issue 25 of T-negative, which has a wonderful essay about Christine Chapel, basically saying, everyone writes her off as a dumb blonde with no agency who's only in love with Kirk. [Obviously I meant Spock, don't @ me…] And actually she is a really, really interesting character. And then the author goes on to discuss Christine in both canon and in fiction. 

It was a wonderful essay, and I was going to cite it -- we talked about doing a Chapel episode, but Women at Warp had just done one. Justice for Christine Chapel, who's not even a character I really care about. But this essay made me want to.

Anika:   Right, that's my take on a lot -- you know, there's the characters that I really, really, really care about, and everybody who listens to this podcast could name them. And then there's all the other women characters who -- like, I will meet you in an alley and punch you--

Liz:   Right?

Anika:   --to protect them, I will one hundred percent go to battle for every woman on Star Trek.

Liz:   Yes. Even the ones I don't like

Anika:   Because all of the arguments against them are sexist. That's where I'm at.

Liz:   One day, I'm going to present the argument that Lwaxana Troi is narcissistic, and not necessarily fully abusive to Deanna, but she is not good to Deanna. And that's the only argument that I will accept against Lwaxana.

Anika:   And the difference is that that is a critique of Lwaxana as a person, which is totally fair.

Liz:   It's not just "she's middle aged and thinks she's sexy."

Anika:   Right, we shouldn't put women on a pedestal, either. But the critiques aren't critiques, they're just, "I don't like" -- again, it's, "I don't like this, and I'm going to write them off." I just watched Star Trek 2009.

Liz:   You did!

Anika:   And I am so ready to go to battle for Uhura. Like, it's upsetting to me. I've seen that movie many times now. You know, like a dozen, let's say, -- I don't know.

Liz:   I've seen it twice!

Anika:   And I can just hear all the negative comments as I'm watching the show. Like, I'm sitting here and I'm watching the movie, and I just hear all this chatter. You know, Uhura is telling Spock to put her on the Enterprise, and there's eight hundred voices in my head saying how she's a nagging girlfriend. And I just like, "No, no, she is not!" She is standing up for herself the way that any person should, and the fact -- their relationship is a wrinkle to it. It is not the reason for it. And if Kirk did exactly the same thing, people would be applauding him.

Liz:   Yes, yes.

Anika:   So I can't. As I was watching the movie, every single thing that Uhura did, I imagined Kirk doing it, and having all of the people like you know, saying "Oh, he was the best version of Kirk." I was just like, ugh! And I know I'm saying that as someone who thinks that Chris Pine is the best version of Kirk...

Liz:   You know, there are credible rumours that Strange New Worlds is going to feature a young Uhura. There's a casting call for a young African American woman to play a comms officer, whose name in the casting call is African, just as Uhura is based on the Swahili. 

And I see people going, "Oh, good, Strange New Worlds is going to fix Uhura, they're going to do her properly." And I'm like, no, they're just going to do her differently. Peck!Spock is not better than Quinto!Spock. They're just different interpretations of Nimoy!Spock.

Anika:   Mm hmm.

Liz:   Anyway.

Anika:   Yeah, so sorry, tangent, but I just get super defensive of these women characters because people are against them for really silly reasons.

Liz:   Moving on, we hit a marvelous piece of fake news. "Another problem with female characters is that feminism can become too much an issue."

Anika:   Oh, dear. I love this because literally like two paragraphs before that, they're saying that feminism is the reason like -- that the lack of female characters is the reason that it's hard to write female characters. It's like, guess what, guys, you're being feminist in that argument. And so now, these women are saying that there's too much feminism in my Star Trek, and I -- again, I'm pretty defensive.

Liz:   They cite this amazing sounding fic when Number One is now -- it says in this recap, she is now an alien ambassador. But according to the Fanlore page for the fic itself, she is the captain of the USS Hood. And any Friends of DeSoto can just take a moment to say, "Best boss I ever had." 

She sits down with a Romulan commander and they both, quote, "bitch interminably about being trodden on by the men in their lives, losing the plot amongst the complaints." 

And like, maybe the fic is sort of hijacked by this, and the story it promised to tell is not the story that eventually came out. I just really, really want to read this fic.

Anika:   I really want to read it too. And that's what I'm saying, that is the kind of stuff that I love to read and write in fic, which has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, but is all about their feelings and their lives and their interpretation of what's going on.

Liz:   And I just love the idea of Number One and a Romulan, comparing notes. I'm just saying, the Romulans had women in command before the Federation.

Anika:   Yeah. I ship it.

Liz:   And they note that the theme of women cooperating with women is a good one, and just beginning to develop. And, you know, I still get a weird warm, self-righteous glow whenever I write that in my fic, so I'm glad it's still a thing. I wish it was more of a thing. And then they move on--

Anika:   This is the best.

Liz:   --to the most important question. What about the men?

Anika:   Okay, so again, I have to tell a story about today. My most popular fanvid on YouTube is a vid about the animated women in Star Wars. So it's all animation, Rebels and Clone Wars. And that's -- actually, I made it before Resistance. So that's it, Rebels and Clone Wars. And this one is what I'm one of, if not my best -- and it's my most popular, right? And it's ages old now. Like I said, pre the last season of Rebels. 

And I still get comments all the time, because, again, it's the one that shows up in the algorithm or whatever. And today I got this amazing comment that was just one question. Four words. "What about man person?"

Liz:   Man person!

Anika:   Man person! And I just started laughing and laughing. I was like, Okay, I'm designing a T-shirt that just says, "What about man person?" and I'm buying one for all of my friends, because that is an amazing comment.

Liz:   I think that we need to release stickers on RedBubble that say, "What about man person?"

Anika:   "What about man person?" Like, that -- it was just so good. That's how I ended up with "social justice Klingon warrior" in my Twitter bio, because somebody accused me of being a social justice warrior for Klingons, and I was like, yup, yes I am. 

Liz:   Well, we've found this episode's title.

[I realise that Anika specifies that it's four words, and then I used three in the title, but, ummmmm, anyway, changing these things post-release is a pain.]

Anika:   What about man person?

Liz:   What about man person?

Anika:   Like, okay, dude, this video is literally a celebration of women. That's, that's the title. That's what it says, Star Wars: Women. I made one for Star Trek, too: Star Trek: Women.

Liz:   But, Anika, what about man person?

Anika:   Go watch Star Trek! Go watch, literally the entire original trilogy and most of the rest. And you can find all the man person you want.

Liz:   So the discussion here, what about man person? Why aren't men writing Trek fic? "There are many males in Trek, why aren't they writing? One suggestion was that men can't take criticism very well. And women are used to it."

Anika:   I mean, every answer that they come up with is actually kind of great.

Liz:   It is! But I'm like, people call us misandrists, and look at this! 

"Criticism is a good tool. The Star Trek world would seem to appeal to males. One expects Marty Sues but gets Mary Sues. But many male Trekfen don't want to write about it, instead want to be in it." 

And I think this is really interesting, because if you look at the fanworks which are dominated by men at the writing and production level, it's fan films. And there's the perennial post on the Star Trek subreddit, "Hey, I just wrote a Star Trek novel, how do I get it published?" And they never want my AO3 invite.

Anika:   Yeah! I mean, I think that this is actually a really amazing insight that is absolutely true. Like, in, in all fandom--

Liz:   Yeah. And I think--

Anika:   --men--

Liz:   Go on.

Anika:   Do that. Like women -- I think we've discussed before how there's the transformative versus, like, critical or or--

Liz:   Collecting?

Anika:   Collector, yeah. Yeah. And, again, we just said there aren't enough women doing stuff in Star Trek in 1977. And so they were, they were saying, "Hey, I'm going to create a woman character who does something." And whereas the men are like, "I'm going to, you know, make a movie where I play Captain Kirk."

Liz:   Yeah.

Anika:   And somehow, they don't see that as fanfic?

[Note from Liz: it's not that there's anything wrong with that approach! I just find it weird how things like Star Trek Continues are treated as semi-canonical, whereas fic mostly … is not.]

[Oh no, do we need to start doing eps on fic the way other podcasts do eps on fan films?]

Liz:   No, no. A few years ago, pre pandemic, I saw the play Puffs, which is essentially a Gary Stu fic in the form of a play. And it's a professional piece of theatre! You can see it on Broadway Online or something, and I highly recommend it. It was a good evening. I have very mixed feelings about Harry Potter these days, but it was a lot of fun. 

But it struck me that "the ordinary kid gets his Hogwarts letter and goes to Hogwarts and is on the periphery of the events of Harry's school years" is a fic that I have seen many, many times. And the difference is--

Anika:   So many times.

Liz:   The difference is like those fics were mostly written by women. And this guy was like, "Oh, yeah, that's a valid idea. I'm going to write a play, and I am going to make it enough of a parody that it is a professional endeavor." And it's just interesting that men are more--

Anika:   Willing to do that.

Liz:   Yeah! And I think it's -- I love fan fiction, and I love that we have this community of amateur writers who love something, but do we, as the women and marginalized people of fandom, need to be more open to also being professionals? Or does something get lost in that?

Anika:   Yeah. It's a really good question because I am very much of the opinion that if all you want to do is write fan fiction, more power to you.

Liz:   Absolutely.

Anika:   That is absolutely valid. That is you're still a writer. You can call yourself a writer. You are a creative. You are coming up with something that someone else didn't do. Your fic is original, even if it's fanfic.

Liz:   Right, and even if it's using tropes and ideas that have been used before, unless you are literally copying and pasting from someone else's story, it is still unique.

Anika:   Right.

Liz:   They speculate that boys aren't interested in writing. "It's cute in girls and effeminate in boys in the high school years, and boys should go out and do it, not daydream." And I think there might be some level of truth in that. Or certainly, there may have been then. And, you know, toxic masculinity and all of that.

Anika:   So here's what I wrote after I copied that over into my notes, that sentence, "writing is looked upon as cute in girls, effeminate in boys". And the sentence that I wrote is, "Hey, is it possible that this nonsense is why we have so few women writing trek novels right now?"

Liz:   Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anika:   Just an idea. Just a thought.

Liz:   They do go on to note, "most SF writers and men, but that that isn't Trek."

Anika:   And also, that's not true.

Liz:   Yeah. Even back then that was not true.

Anika:   Sorry. That definitely wasn't true in the '70s. There were many women writing science fiction in the '70s.

Liz:   This was the age of McCaffrey and Butler and Le Guin. And more. Those are just the ones we remember!

Anika:   Literally everything I read in the '80s was written in the '70s. So that's just wrong. 

Liz:   Joanna Russ was writing Kirk/Spock fic and also science fiction novels.

Anika:   Exactly. It's society. It's not us. It's not me and you who's keeping Una McCormack as the only woman allowed to write Star Trek right now.

Liz:   Right, right.

Anika:   Like, it's the people in charge. And the people in charge have decided that science fiction should only be written by men, and they are going to like, make that happen.

Liz:   Right? And so it's interesting that men seem to self exclude from fan fiction. I think that's less true now than it was then. But it's certainly interesting because they go on, there's a bit down here, "at least a third of Trekfen are male." [laughs] I died! 

But they speculate that "perhaps the dearth of men in zines is self perpetuating, since male writers are reluctant to submit their precious manuscripts to female criticism."

Anika:   That is true. Like, I will say, I know some male writers who have not submitted their manuscripts because they don't want to hear it. And I said a while ago that I don't have a beta reader for the same reason, so I'm not saying that they shouldn't be like that. But it is a thing.

Liz:   No, no. What struck me was that with the internet, like the gatekeepers in the editorial process disappeared for fan fiction and we see some more men now than we had then. But still not that many. And it's like it's a mystery to me.

Anika:   I don't know any.

Liz:   Writing fan fiction is great. Why would you not?

Anika:   There aren't any men in our Kat Cornwell discord. There are a couple of non binary people, but no men?

Liz:   Certainly no cis men. Is it just not a community that's appealing to cis men?

Anika:   And why? Is it because they're not paid for it and you have to like, you know, "I hunt and gather and bring everything in"? Again the patriarchy is bad for everybody. Capitalism is bad for everybody.

Liz:   There's a very strange and amusing digression here: "Cogswell and Spano ((MAY SLIME DEVILS INFEST THEIR TYPEWRITER)) were mentioned as trotting around at cons, getting opinions for Spock Mess--but again, those are pros ((SUCH AS THEY ARE))." 

And I assume that Cogswell and Spano are nicknames. I don't know what Spock Mess is. I didn't really get any useful Google results. It might be a zine. 

I was wondering if maybe they were nicknames for Harlan Ellison or Isaac Asimov or David Gerrold, who were all part of the fan community and were certainly known as people who trotted around at cons. Gerrold was deeply hated by a lot of women in fandom because he's a complete donkey, and was not able to say "I don't care for slash" without also saying, "slash is written by fat ugly housewives who need to get laid."

Anika:   Ugh. Yeah, so--

Liz:   Thanks for the tribbles, mate, you can just move along.

Anika:   Again, fine, you don't have to read the slash. But that's just "I don't like this thing...."

Liz:   If anyone out there knows who this aside refers to please, tell us because I require much gossip.

Anika:   Also, I kind of want to have an opinion on Spock Mess.

Liz:   Yeah, I would very much like to know what it is so that I can have an opinion on it.

Anika:   I'd really like to have an opinion about it. So let me know what that means.

Liz:   "It's a waste if we can get mediocre rotten and fairly good ideas from female authors, why not from male?"

Anika:   Okay, look, I don't actually need men to have a bigger footprint in fandom, because they have reality.

Liz:   It's true. It's true. But fandom was so female dominated back then, "at least a third of Trekren are male," that I understand why, in these formative years, it would have been nicer to have 50/50. 

And then it goes, "Masculine domination of straight SF was brought up again, with the observation that SF is written by and large for adolescent males." 

No, that is not true! That was not true in the 70s! 

"And that the field has been changing to human relationship or alien relationship stories, largely on account of the female writers." Who did exist! 

And I love that they discuss original SF alongside fic. "Treklit."

Anika:   Yeah, that they're basically talking about them the same way. Like, these are both forms of science fiction writing.

Liz:   Right. And like I said, Joanna Russ was writing Kirk/Spock fic. And these days, Naomi Novik is the founder of AO3, and also writing acclaimed novels, which I personally do not care for, but I don't read them and don't complain that they exist.

Anika:   Because there's a lot of stuff that I don't read and don't complain that it exists. I'll just put that out there.

Liz:   Because I'm sort of in the con organizing scene, I pay a lot of attention to like Hugos, and I nominate and I try to read as many of the nominated works as I can. And sometimes I'm like, No, no, this is a bad year for works specifically designed to appeal to me.

Anika:   I probably read more fan fiction than published science fiction. I'll be honest.

Liz:   A lot of people do.

Anika:   Partly because it's free. Partly because it's about characters I already love.

Liz:   Yeah. And it is so hard to care -- like it takes real skill to create original characters that other people care about. It's hard!

Anika:   That is true.

Liz:   It's a real skill!

Anika:   That is very true. And even when you do -- like, let's take Daenerys Targaryen--

Liz:   Alas.

Anika:   George R R Martin created her, right? Whatever. Him

Liz:   Yes. He made you care about her.

Anika:   I guarantee that I care more about Daenerys Targaryen than he does. And I also guarantee I care more about Daenerys Targaryen than DB or the other D.

Liz:   I don't know about GRRM, but I absolutely agree with you on that. You win that easily.

Anika:   So that's why I'm gonna go read fan fiction about Daenerys Targaryen instead of caring about when Winds of Winter ever comes out.

Liz:   But also, you know, you're entering into a contract with a fic writer where they're saying, "Look, I love this character, and I care about them too." And you're like, "Cool, I'm gonna sit with you and we're going to care together."

Anika:   Right, we're gonna care together, I'm -- we're going to fix -- like, you know, fix it fic is like a really popular tag for every fandom because every fandom needs to be fixed for someone.

Liz:   I was very against the idea of fix it fic as a concept because I'm like, Sure you can change and you can alter what the show does, but ultimately, you know, what I love is canon. And then they blew someone up and I am very pro fix it fic. I am a Cornwell denialist.

Anika:   It's interesting. This is where my love of alternate universes comes in, where I can -- like a fix it fic is just an alternate universe, it doesn't mean that the canon didn't happen. It's like, here's a different way it could have gone. 

And I love that, because characters who are thrown into many different plots and many different situations and circumstances and the way things went, seeing the similarities, the throughlines, and their strengths and their skills and their innermost being, like, how it comes out? That's what's interesting to me, that's the identity stuff that I'm always talking about. That's like, this is what matters to this character.

Liz:   And there's a really interesting writing trick where, if you're not sure you understand your original character, you should go and write an AU of them. So if you're trying to write a fantasy, go scribble out a coffee shop AU and see, see what is actually essential to that character.

Anika:   Exactly, yes.

Liz:   And now I'm wondering, is the reason for the whole Mary Sue discourse, and this whole discussion about original characters in fan fiction, because a lot of these writers were novices and didn't have the skills to make people care about their original characters?

Anika:   Absolutely! I still have some of my fanfic that I wrote when I was 13. And it is bad. Even -- there are two Voyager fics that I wrote way back when that I put on my AO3, because they're the two that I think are acceptable, and they are still bad.

Liz:   Oh, yeah.

Anika:   They are … like, I put them up because I'm proud of them. But I'm proud of them twenty years ago. You know, it's like, thank God, I have improved since this time.

Liz:   The first fic I actually finished was a Savage Garden songfic where Q watches Janeway and Chakotay dance. It is not good at all. But in my defense, I was 14 years old.

Anika:   Exactly. And I think that that's, that matters. One thing that I really love about fanfic, and that I love about having a profile on Archive of Our Own, is that I can go back to this stuff that is fifteen years old, and I can say like, Oh, this is like, I'm telling this, this story again, in this new fic. But look at how much I've improved, look at how I've been able to, like, tease those ideas into something so much like -- into so much more of a blossom.

Liz:   And with these women who are writing fic in the '70s -- you know, the general profile of a Trekkie back then was a middle-aged, college educated woman who had married straight after college, had children. Maybe she had a part-time job as a receptionist, or a secretary or something like that. But this was her first creative outlet in decades. And her first writing work in decades. And it is the work of intelligent, educated but untrained writers who are practicing. And - - -

Anika:   Exactly, practicing. 

I love that fanfic doesn't have to have a beginning, a middle and an end. You don't have to waste time on telling them about the character, you can just tell them about what the character is feeling right now, because I already know who Spock is. 

So you don't have to tell me who Spock is. You just have to tell me what Spock is doing right now, and how it makes him feel, and how it's different from what he feels in the episode I just watched. 

It allows you to hone your skills with a very low like bar. You don't have to prove anything. The worst thing that happens is someone doesn't like your fic.

Liz:   And we talked at the beginning, and I guess this brings us full circle, but we talked at the beginning about how the criticisms in this panel were not the sorts of things that would fly today, and people could be really upfront about not liking stuff. 

But I read some of the letters of comment for big fics around this time, and there was one, and it's a very well known writer, and I cannot remember who she was - possibly even Paula -- no, not Paula Smith. 

Anyway, the letter of comment was basically, "You need to slow down," or, no, "she needs to slow down," it was a letter to the zine, not to the writer. 

"She needs to slow down and consider her pacing and really take time to settle into a scene and let things unfold. Because she is not a bad writer now, but she is going to be really, really good when she's comfortable enough to take her time." 

And that's really, really fantastic feedback. And put really kindly And so yeah, fandom hasn't changed that much.

Anika:   You know, you can go to college for literature, or whatever, and mostly you get beaten down. And you get told, you know, this is what you're doing wrong, and this is the way you need to do better. 

And fanfic is the opposite, where it's like, they're not going to tell you how to fix things necessarily. They're gonna encourage you, and even when they say something negative, it's in an encouraging way. And I think that the balance of both is the perfect, you know, that the best way to make a writer is to have both.

Liz:   Absolutely. 

Are we done? Should I outro?

Anika:   I think so.

Liz:   Okay. It's really hot here. I need another shower.

Anika:   I'm sorry.

Liz:   I'm sorry for Texas!

Anika:   It is. Yeah, it is cold and snowing here.

Liz:   If I could send you my excess heat...

Anika:   And I'm not Texas. Thank God.  

Liz:   Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at  antimatterpod.tumblr.com, including links to our social media and credits for our theme music. 

You can follow us on Twitter at @Antimatter Pod, and on Facebook, because as far as Facebook is concerned, we are not a news source. That's a bit of Australian humour for you. 

If you like us, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you consume your podcasts. 

The more reviews the easier it is for new listeners to find us and join us in two weeks, when we'll be discussing bisexuality and Star Trek.

Anika:   It will be great!

[official-ladyblog]

Genuinely wondering. Why do you think using the name lady noir(e) is rude to the Fandom? I know you're kind of over this subject so you don't have to answer

(I haven’t actually answered this question yet so you’re gucci c: )

So, and I forgot to mention it today because I didn’t scroll through for posts to reblog (whoops), but as of today we’ve had the show for 4 whole years! 4 years of Ladybug and Chat Noir saving the day. (Approximately a little less time for the fandom to take hold, but I’ll say about October 2015 with the French premiere was when the fandom really got going.) 

Obviously the romance is a major focus of the show, so tumblr immediately had to get going with the tags. People quickly realized that the love square had different dynamics on each side, and came up with something for each part. Some pieces took time to workshop; during the early fandom I heard “Adrienbug” or “Chatmari,” and I think to this day we’re not completely sure what we prefer with “Adrienette.”

But if there was one ship name we nailed, it was “Ladynoir.” Of the four, this could easily be seen as the “main” ship of the show, as it is first and foremost a superhero show (so they’re always transformed at some point) and even at the beginning we saw their cute banter. I considered it so dominant, in fact, that my original tag for shippy content was just “ladynoir” even when I just meant any aspect of the love square. (A tag I gave up on when, yknow, I realized that the whole show was one big romance)

So in interacting with the fandom all these years, the staff knew well that we called one of the ships “Ladynoir.” Heck, they’ve been known to tease us on Twitter with “you guys will be happy with the Adrienette in this episode :)”, etc. This isn’t a fandom secret or something. 

Now, I don’t know how long ZAG has been planning a kwami swap. It’s been a popular fan idea about as long as the show’s been on, certainly it had also been tossed around the writers room. But I don’t think they could have feasibly designed them before October 2015. 

Even if they had? There would be 4 years before the episode actually hit screens. All the time that it takes to make an episode, from writing room floor to animation to dubbing, takes months. On a smaller time frame, say they designed Lady Noire and Mister Bug when they first started writing season 3, and sent out the doll designs immediately so the merch could get a head start; there were months between then and the script getting sent in for animation. Anybody with even a little fandom exposure could’ve said “yeah what if we tried a different name?” and workshopped it a bit before the lip flap animations were locked in. 

They shouldn’t lock in bad ideas before sending them to animators, and in fact, we know they don’t: Nora was named “Nancy” in her first sketches, Queen Bee’s leaked design had a purse instead of the top, and don’t forget Zag leaked the season 2 powerups as a big reveal for the season… and it turned out they’d tossed the pearl idea and went with the potions. Things can and should change to make sure only the best ideas go in the episodes. 

But all of that means that, way back when we first found out about the swap names, it was likely early enough that they hadn’t even gotten to animating Reflekdoll. (The fact that we’re not getting this episode until this week, despite having it in production for about a year, means they had plenty of time to change.) 

Now, after typing and researching all of this, I’ve come to a realization: maybe ZAG did it instead as an homage to the ship name. The writers can definitely see our fandom, and the idea that they actually saw something from us and wanted to shout it out is kind of flattering. We can ask Thomas more about this in a couple days after the episode has aired. 

Why I don’t want her to be Lady Noire? Because having a character take the exact name of a ship only serves to screw up tags. Fans group and find fanworks by ship name tags, and having something completely different come in and take the tag only confuses everyone. I mean, cartoon-makers are very familiar with the phenomenon: they have to strive to give characters and shows unique names so they stand out among other properties. It’s one of the reasons we get ‘Cat Noir’ instead of just ‘Black Cat.’ And for some of the creators being so active in the fandom, they know we love our tags and ship names. They should know better than to pick something so now we have confusion between the Ladynoir ship and Marinette with the black cat. 

Anyway. They’ve had a lot of time for the backlash to set in, so maybe for the finalized ep they did go with different names. Heck, maybe this is why the ep took so long to make and kept getting pushed back – like I know there are some new models here, but not that many more than a typical new ep, right? Especially since Reflekta’s power is legit just “reuse Reflekta’s model.” Maybe, just maybe, renaming the hero(es) meant they had to go back and get the animators to change every instance that they mentioned the names (probably a good few times in the ep). Super unlikely but, as always, I can dream.

I just wrote more for this than I’ve often written for school assignments, soooooo I hope that answers the question. lol. and happy birthday ML!