#because you get to be there to see all the mainstream trope fics appear

[starcurtain]

More Phaidei Fics I Want to Read

1. Obligatory "fish out of water" fic (mostly AU because the timeline would probably not match canon, but we do what we want here!), taking place after Mydei and the Kremnoans first make it to Okhema. Okhema is already harsh on outsiders, let alone on a conquering "barbarian" tribe infamous for bringing strife to so many other city states. Mydei doesn't know the local customs at all, and while he doesn't care the slightest about how these pathetic Okhemans see him, the trouble he keeps getting into is affecting the reputations of innocent Kremnoans too. He's got to find a way to blend in, at least enough to stop costing his fellows any chance of finding paid work... Too bad the only person who is willing (and has time) to help is Phainon (who isn't native to Okhema either but done a much better job of learning to get along with the locals). The guy thinks he's the Titans' gift to Amphoreus just because he beat Mydei in a duel once. It was only once! And why does it matter whether we eat standing up or lying down? What are you laughing at, Savior Complex?! Or, tl;dr: The culture clash comedy one where Phainon and Mydei teach each other entirely opposing sets of manners, and come to learn a lot more about one another in the process.

2. Also obligatory omegaverse where Mydei is an omega born with a unique constitution: he's built like an alpha, snarls like an alpha, and dominates his opponents like an alpha. He even smells like an alpha, especially when he's in heat, so the only people who ever figured out his secondary gender were his doctor and his parents, all of whom are dead now. The whole world thinks Mydei is an alpha, and his reputation as an indomitable warrior prince pretty much hinges on people continuing to believe that. The problem is, Mydei wouldn't actually mind getting to live an omega's life, at least the part about finding a mate and starting a family. Only, who in the world would want him for a mate? Any alpha hunting for an actual omega would never think to look in Mydei's direction, betas would just be confused, and even those few alphas who are attracted to other alphas would only end up disappointed after discovering Mydei isn't one. He's nobody's ideal partner, and he'd mostly made peace with that--until Phainon. Until that upstart alpha from the middle of nowhere knocked Mydei down in a brutal spar and then pulled him up with the gentlest hand, and suddenly it mattered that no one would ever want Mydei. It mattered a lot. (Of course, the long and short of it is that Mydei is the man of Phainon's dreams, and after a series of setbacks and miscommunications and lots of silly angst, they'll find their way to a happy ending.)

3. After discovering Mydei's weakness for sweets and cute things like pink pomegranate juice, Phainon decides to engage in a bit of light-hearted teasing: He starts sending Mydei exceedingly adorable gifts and fancy candies under the guise of a "secret admirer." The joke is on Phainon, however, when it turns out Mydei finds the gifts quite charming and is determined to discover the identity of the mysterious gift giver. A reasonable person would quickly give up on the joke to avoid getting caught, but Phainon has always been weak to chasing thrills--and maybe this whole thing about being Mydei's "secret admirer" isn't too far off after all... (The real joke is that Mydei, realizing immediately who the gifts were from, invented an entire "hunting my admirer down" story just for the fun of watching Phainon squirm--and, well, because keeping the whole thing going, being showered with attention by his rival, doesn't feel too bad at all.)

4. The opposite fic: The one where Mydei's completely mismatched online personality accidentally catfishes Phainon and causes some very silly drama. Mydei's (anonymous) teletweet account is full of cutesy chimera kitten memes, aesthetic pictures of food, heart emojis, and overly punctuated (with exclamation points) recaps of shopping trips in Okhema's market... Can anyone blame Phainon for thinking this is the account of a cute girl who is refreshingly earnest about her love for chubby seals and pink milk tea? But as Phainon becomes closer and closer to "Fig Stew" online, things get more and more complicated--because he's also been getting closer and closer to his real world companion Mydeimos lately. Both Fig and Mydei are wonderful, and Phainon can barely bear the thought of losing either of them in his life. Trying to get closer to them both would be way too dishonest, but choosing one over the other... What should he do? Meanwhile, Mydei is in trouble. He wasn't planning to set up some secret identity or anything; it's not his fault Phainon mistook him for a girl online! There's nothing weird about dudes posting sparkling kitten gifs, godsdammit!! But now the charade's gone on way too long to come clean, especially since Phainon seems so invested, and... well, can you blame Mydei for not wanting to give up on the closest thing to a relationship he's ever managed to start? tl;dr: Online mistaken identity hijinks fic.

5. The required-in-every-fandom time travel fic (with bonus fake dating)! Through an outpouring of Oronyx's power, Mydei and Phainon end up in the bodies of their future selves, who, it turns out, have not only managed to end Amphoreus' war and revive Castrum Kremnos, but... appear to have also... gotten married?!! Now Mydei and Phainon have to not only find out exactly how their future selves managed to save the world (so they can accomplish the same task) then look for a way back to their own time--they've got to do all of that while also pretending to be a happily wedded pair of rulers to avoid raising everyone's suspicions. This would be a whole lot easier if either of them knew the first thing about being actual kings... or about relationships. The slightest slip up could create ripple effects that change the entire timeline permanently, but--no matter how nerve-wracking it might be to admit, after seeing the future in store for them together--there's nothing Phainon (and Mydei) won't do to make sure things go exactly as they should.

[chuluoyi]

I have better way to say it about reader can't be a model. If he want to keep me for himself, make sure to only see me, not even a model. Or I will send him to grave, instead of sukuna 😊🍼

Anyway about jealousy, chuu. Satoru is teasing utahime too often that her junior fantasizes to ship them. They don't know that you are his gf. And being sad all day, because you know it is his nature, and not his wrong doing. And utahime is your friend and feels humiliated with his teasing, so she is victim. But, you feel insecure that you both look less for a couple in others eyes ಥ‿ಥ

ahaha🥹 honestly i don’t really see LE reader being jealous of utahime at all— or maybe it’s bc i created LE reader as someone who doesn’t get jealous for real when it comes to something she knows is plainly impossible🥹 back then i thought it’s so mainstream to get jealous of utahime and i’m tired of that trope (as well as reader being overly weak all the time) so that’s why the kind of scenarios like getting into fight over jealousy with gojo or reader being a total damsel who can’t defend herself never appear in love entries🥹

but i’ve gotten these suggestions several times… so i think i might really write the jealousy short story as a continuation for my older fic belong to me with older!gojo and student!reader bc i think it suits them more??🥹 with age gap and all, student!reader is prone to getting insecure easily rather than LE reader who has been with gojo since day 0 and knows full well what his core is🙂‍↕️

[thequibblah]

(have had this drafted for a bit and since apparently people think i’m bashing an author because i haven’t yet published a manifesto of why this trope is snoozeworthy ig I hit publish now! plus ik some people who follow me here are unaware of the conversation in the jily discord rn so let me clarify my very firm position)

right, enough is enough. writing james as a death eater is terrible. it is not interesting to take a story that is fully and totally unrelated to any of these so-called fascinating, interesting dark themes and turn it into oppressed girl/oppressor — which is what this is. it is not compelling to write a james who thinks only lily is worth saving — which is what this is. it is not romantic to write a lily who has to convince james to switch sides, see the humanity in people like her, or even just to accept that bigotry is worth fighting — which is what this does. it’s not nuanced in any sense to write a james who is conflicted in any way about where he stands — it’s sn*ly. it’s not sexy it’s not edgy it’s not clever it’s not thought-provoking it’s not shocking it’s not moving it’s not well-written it’s not thrilling. whatever you think you’re doing it is not novel. it’s not groundbreaking. it’s WASP as fuck. and it sure as hell isn’t your handmaid’s tale when you write a character and someone belonging to a hate group that targets her as her soulmate.

and it’s not cute to act like jewish fans or fans of colour are overreacting or being sanctimonious when we suggest you’re writing something that hurts us — because it does. (your reading and prepwork is immaterial. and readers of yours who are marginalised do not speak for all of us, so save your breath if you’re thinking about tokenising them.) it’s even less cute when you are the same people who talk about how welcoming and supportive the jily fandom is — because it is until shit gets serious.

this stuff is not a clinical, dispassionate, “interesting” debate to think about or explore for some of us. when i see this or hear about this — despite, let me assure you, the most strenuous, involved blacklisting I have ever done in my life — all i can think of is myself hypothetically entangled with a man belonging to a hate group, and the number of people who would appear to consider that situation romantic. i can’t imagine the privilege it means to be able to separate this fiction from reality. i can’t imagine the gall and the blindness it takes to think your purported favourite female character going through that is anything but an ugly, scarring tragedy that only ends happily with her miles away from the other half of her ship.

if you think i sound holier than thou or sanctimonious, if you think i hate fun, if you think i act superior, if you think i’m moralising — happy to accept all these labels! i’m also correct, so i don’t care about the rest of that 😊 if you read my fic and you enjoy and support this stuff, i guess i can’t stop you. but i don’t write for you. so, if that hurts your feelings, unfollow and unsubscribe, by all means. i would say i am sorry to lose your readership but truthfully the way i approach this ship is fundamentally irreconcilable with dark/death eater jily, and i am extremely uncomfortable as is with the amount of race-related allegory i put in my fic existing in the same mainstream as that.

so — i’m sick of handwringing and feeling stupidly, embarrassingly afraid of stating this opinion out of my own misplaced desire to choose tact or courtesy when these authors and these fans are vocal and proud and frankly careless, ignorant, and unimaginative. i don’t care about maintaining fandom clout; i do not care about burning bridges. i don’t care that some of these people have read my fic and been kind to me — i am apparently only worth listening to insofar as i don’t make anyone uncomfortable. so fuck that.

this is not a goodbye post because i literally will cling to anything out of spite. excited to continue writing a james worth rooting for and a lily whose story isn’t trauma porn. xo

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[bamf-jaskier]

Hello ! So i know you've talked about racism in the witcher fandom before and i have a question. When reading fics i am struck by the fact that very little fics portray Triss as a woman of color, as she appears in the show and an overwhelming amount portray her as a red head. So my question is this: is it racism or just a general dislike of the show and another sign that fans seem to think that the witcher 3 is the best ?

It’s racism. I am not going to sugarcoat it or say it’s because fans just “prefer” game Triss. They prefer her because of their implicit bias. There is a post about choosing to right in the Netflix Verse but keep Game Triss Here. If there is a fic that is set in the Netflix Verse and uses Jaskier instead of Dandelion, describes Geralt with no beard and as, well, Henry Cavill, and even sometimes, if you are lucky, uses Anya Chalotra as Yennefer but then uses Game Triss? That is making the specific choice to exclude a black character which if most of the fic is set in the Netflix verse, that is a very specific choice rooted in racism, whether on accident or on purpose.

While the game was popular, the fandom didn’t rise-up or become mainstream on Tumblr until the tv show came out. If you want evidence of that, just go look at Tumblr���s 2020 review. They had an entire section for The Witcher, it was #13 on the top 20 things tagged on Tumblr in 2020, Geraskier was the 4th most popular ship out of 100 (Yenralt didn’t even make the list), Jaskier was the 3rd most popular character, Geralt was the 5th, Yennefer was the 24th (yeah there’s a problem here too). 

And if you want even MORE evidence of this, here’s tumblr’s year in review for 2019 JUST for video games, not even overall things or fandom. The Witcher isn’t even in the top 50. It also wasn’t on Tumblr year in review in 2018, 2017, or 2016. Before 2020, The Witcher never made it into these lists, the tv show made the fandom we see now. 

As well let’s look at some of the fanfiction stats from AO3. 11,805 out of 21,208, aka 56% of Witcher fanfiction is explicitly tagged as the Netflix series. However, I know that many fans like to just use The Witcher - All Media Types tag and not the show one (I know I use that) so let’s look at timeline as well. 18,900 out of 21,208, aka 89% of ALL Witcher fanfiction was written after the show was released. Even if you have tried your gosh-darn best to avoid it, the trope and fandom from the Netflix series have seeped into most people’s perception of The Witcher. So again, re-stating my point, using all the Netflix characters in fanfiction BUT Triss, is anti-blackness, plain and simple. 

And a lot of fans online have used the excuse, they aren’t racist, they just don’t think she looks like the character. They say things like “it’s the same thing people said when Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond”...but it’s not. When you say a Black woman doesn’t “look right” for a role you are saying black people have no place in your story. Re-evaluate yourself when you makes those comments and think about the company you are keeping. Because you are keeping company with literal racists who use the same phrases and have the same opinions as you. 

A post about some of the backlash actor’s faced here: 

Here’s an article about the harassment 

Now a Reddit thread about Triss would look better with straight hair

More Reddit 

But “Oh” you say, that’s just specific to Reddit, Tumblr would NEVER be racist. 

Well here’s a fun collection of posts!

An Artist who draws Racist Caricatures of Triss 

A post about how people refuse to talk about fandom racism

How fandom racism isn’t just fiction vs reality

A post about shipping trends being racist (and people harassing OP in the chat)

blank-slate characters and the racial bias they deal with

Specifically a post about Yenralt and Racism (think about those Tumblr ranking while reading this...)

Another post about people refusing to talk about fandom racism

I just gave a few examples but look through the blogs of anyone whose been talking about fandom racism and you will see so many posts and examples. 

The Witcher fandom has a racism problem. It’s not just Yennefer or shipping Yenralt. It extends to how the fandom treats Netflix Triss as I have talked about here, it extends to how there’s practically no content or more specifically, engagement for characters of color. It’s about how the fandom keeps pushing POC out to the point where people I love are leaving the fandom because they aren’t welcome here. 

If you aren’t willing to listen to POC when they tell you something is racist, when they tell you something is wrong. Fuck off. 

I encourage everyone if they haven’t to read the article Who Actually Gets to “Escape” Into Fandom?

[alfredosauce50]

would you be down to do 2p china hc’s? im very curious on how you characterize him!

I’m down! I’m guessing you figured I had my own interpretation of the guy after I answered an ask saying I’d write for him. I really like 2p! China as a character, but I have to say, I haven’t properly written for him before. Nevertheless, I’ll give you my thoughts on him as a person!

2p! China Headcanons

Zao’s appearance doesn’t give away much of his personality. He’s got a bit of a baby face, and he has a sociable and pleasant demeanor for the most part. So if you didn’t know him well enough to see past those traits, you would be surprised at how shady he can be.

Appearance

Like his 1p counterpart, his dark brown hair goes past his shoulders and is tied back in a low ponytail. It’s pretty thin too, so it stays flat against his back. But that’s what makes it look so good. He isn’t the tallest guy out there, as he stands around 170cm or 5′7″. Doesn’t mean you can easily take him out in a fight, though. He’s quite slender, but he’s muscular and knows a few martial arts to boot.

He has a lot of tattoos, and he doesn’t try to hide them. He has dragons curling down his arms, as well as Chinese characters etched into his back. Most of the time, he wears traditional clothing, such as a sleeveless Tang suit, so his arms are exposed. It’s almost as if the colors black and red were made for him. And he knows it. So unless he’s having a bad day where he’ll go for a simple T-shirt, he likes to dress to impress. Not that he even needs to try.

He’s devilishly attractive, and the way he talks gets girls flocking to him.

Personality

Zao is very easy-going and open-minded. He’ll talk about anything with anyone. Everything is fascinating in a way, and nothing seems to faze him either. So he’s the type to question the most trivial things in life--or list drugs as casually as you would your favorite candy bars. It’s also difficult to shock him, or anger him. When life deals him a bad hand, or springs up inconveniences, he’ll go with the flow because that’s life. So unless something involves the person he likes, he keeps himself pretty level-headed.

With his willingness to talk about anything, comes his brutal honesty and bluntness. So sometimes, he’ll find himself offending people even if he never meant to. If he does this to women, they’ll slap him before storming off, leaving him in confusion at what he did wrong. But if he does this to men, he’ll have to be quick on his feet to escape a potential fight. Unlike a few other 2ps, he has a good temperament so he avoids violence, but he’ll resort to it if he absolutely has to.

Despite the careers he’s depicted to have, like being a drug-dealer, something in adult entertainment, night-life, or anything illegal, he has strong fraternal instincts. If somebody embodied the “big brother” trope, it would be him. He cares a lot for his younger siblings, and they look up to him as a role model. But he’ll always tell them, “Do as I say, not as I do!” As comfortable as he is in his own skin, his own identity, he wouldn’t want them taking after him.

He’s very flirtatious, and a huge tease. How he shows he likes you is through making you blush, or embarrassed. He’ll call you pet names. Shower you with compliments. Refer to you as if you and him are already an item. If you bumped into him at a grocery store, he’ll help you shop, then say, “So, is that all we need? I can’t wait for dinner tonight.” Zao is also unapologetically dirty-minded. He’s all about dirty jokes, conversations, and gestures. The bigger reaction he gets, the more addicting they are.

He doesn’t have any qualifications, not even a high school diploma, but he’s street-smart to make up for it. That’s how he makes so many connections and hustles his way up to the top in shady businesses. If you need something, anything, legal or illegal, expensive or cheap, you can ask him, and 99% of the time, he’ll say, “I know a guy.” If he likes you, all he wants in return is something perverted. A kiss, maybe. Or maybe your underwear.

Interests

He loves anything cute, and he doesn’t hide it. Sanrio is a must--he keeps a collection of their plushies, most of them being Hello Kitty, but he also likes other characters such as Cinnamoroll and Pompompurin. Sometimes, he can get a bit obsessive over whatever sells fast. So if he has to, he’ll stay up and keep refreshing the page selling whatever he has his eyes on. If he’s infamous for his connections that let him get pretty much anything he wants, surely he can get his hands on the limited-edition Hello Kitty-themed towel, right!? He isn’t against having other kinds of merchandise either, like household items, but he keeps it lowkey for functionality.

In his house, you’ll find a lot of imports from East-Asian countries. Not only is he used to using them when he was back in China, they’re better than what you can find in America. Or at least, in his opinion. This includes cosmetics, snacks, alcohol, and decorations.

Although he doesn’t have a lot of time to, he enjoys watching anime. That’s why he makes sure to get through the most popular and mainstream ones first.

Zao likes to keep connected with his culture. He doesn’t care to assimilate, and being ‘different’ doesn’t bother him at all--he thinks it’s what gives him a unique personality and background. Since he doesn’t have a lot of friends to speak Mandarin with, he’ll look for his neighbors who can, and strike up a conversation every now and then. As well as that, he’ll give his siblings red pockets for Chinese New Year so they can spend it on food, videogames or whatever they want.

He can’t cook for shit. Even then, he has strong opinions on food, especially Chinese. While he enjoys westernised take out like Panda express, he wishes people would stop assuming Chinese cuisine is just dumplings, fried rice, noodles and yum cha. They’re B-tier at best. For a country with that rich and long a history, there’s so much more to indulge in. Too bad he can’t make anything if he tried.

Psychology + romance

Zao is used to being a second choice. His cheerfulness and bluntness make other people think he’s creepy or weird, so he can’t quite wrap his head around somebody liking him to that degree--or getting particularly close to him. At least, emotionally. There are a lot of girls who want him for one-night stands. But this doesn’t stop him from flirting with someone he genuinely likes, even if he doesn’t expect anything in return. It’s fun because they get flustered, after all. But when they start returning the same energy, get persistent, or even make him suspect that they like him back, he will get nervous. He’s used to being the chaser, not the other way around. So if the tables turn and things start getting real, he will back away.

As confident as he is with his image, it’s difficult for him to get intimate with somebody romantically. He’s open, but can’t be vulnerable. He’d rather keep things casual, so when he really falls for someone, he’ll be conflicted between keeping things the way they are, or pursuing them.

Eventually, these feelings will deepen to the point being just friends becomes suffocating. That’s when Zao loses his cool and gets frustrated. It could happen due to a build-up of his emotions, or an event that makes him explode from jealousy. He’ll get desperate after so long of not doing anything and make it very clear he wants you. “Just date me already!”

When he finally gets together with you, prepare to be coddled. He’ll want to help you with anything the best way he can, and go to extreme lengths to do so. Nothing seems extreme when it’s for somebody he cares so much about. While he never holds it against you--how much he does for you--he may or may not guilt trip you into giving him more affection. But only subtly. Instead of him kissing you, he'll loiter around your presence until you kiss him. And when you do, he’ll smile like an idiot.

He never makes it explicit when he wants to take you out on a date. Zao will just ask you if you’re free, and take you out for the night. He doesn’t see a point in labelling it as a ‘date’, because he doesn’t just see quality time with you through a romantic and sexual lens. He values the friendship aspect of it as well, and you really appreciate him for it.

Zao loves to cuddle. He doesn’t hug you much throughout the day, but when you’re at home and about to sleep, he will hug you, a lot. He won’t let go while he talks to you, and will only loosen his coils when you fall asleep.

Acknowledgements

I was mainly inspired by the 2p! China in the story, “Dragon District”, written by xYourHero. So props to them. The fandom’s perception of him has definitely deepened because of it, and it’s great seeing underrated 2ps finally getting the attention they deserve! I’m one of the people who’s had my characterization of Zao take after hers, so I’ll also be crediting her for my headcanons.

You can find the story on DeviantArt, Archive of our own and Wattpad. I adored that fic back in the day. Such good memories. I wasn’t even writing back when I was reading it. Any who, let’s get right into it. I’ve divided the headcanons into subcategories, appearance, personality, interests, and psychology + romance.

(Look at this fanart is by Amphany on DeviantArt. It was drawn for xYourHero. I’m gonna put it here for reference. https://www.deviantart.com/amphany/art/Dragon-smoke-548426383)

[loopy777]

I wonder what consider a fanfic to be popular. I mean, I obviously don’t mean it in like a mainstream way (like 50 shades of gray), but like somewhat popular that other people would highly recommend it. I guess being on the TV-tropes fanfic rec page could be a tell, but for me I would say if the fic have been mention before on the web (in a positive light) a dozen of times then it’s pretty popular. Oh. And I guess looking at Kudos and Favs help factor in the popularity too. What do you think?

Well, since I as a fanfic author get email notifications of reviews/comments and kudos, that’s my first gauge on whether something I write is popular. If I get two whole comments on a story or chapter on AO3, I’m thrilled! On FanFiction.net, I worked out that the ‘baseline reviews count’ is three per story/chapter, so anything more than that means I achieved something, and anything less than that means I produced a work that either has a boring premise or is actively bad. There’s rarely any point in looking for more of an impact for most of my writing.

(How did I establish a ‘baseline reviews count,’ you ask? Simple, I wrote and published a Zutara story during the height of AtLA’s popularity under a brand new pen-name. The story barely had any punctuation, was cliched and simple, and never got an additional chapter or other update. It received three reviews. Thus we have a baseline. And that’s why no one likes engineers.)

(And no, you can’t read the story. I don’t remember the title, the pen-name, or even which email address I used for it. It was literally constructed to be disposable.)

But yes, true popularity comes from word of mouth. People who are more engaged in fanfic communities can keep an eye on Rec Lists, always a great indicator that people read and like your story. The TVTropes rec lists are a fairly well-known example, as you note, but I find that they typically have some pretty big blind spots. The biggest fanfics will usually appear there, but sometimes the most popular of sub-categories -- certain pairings, fandom genres like character-specific Redemptions, even fics from a certain era of the fandom -- can get left off. If you’re writing Maiko fanfic, for example, you’re better off looking specifically to see if your fic appears on Maiko rec lists and is getting plugged into local communities.

Then you can also check review blogs/forums. Some people like to write extended reviews on a standalone venue, and I think that shows a level of popularity beyond regular reviews. After all, reviews and even rec lists are just about sharing some joy, but a dedicated long form review or discussion implies that there’s worth to the story beyond simply consuming it. It’s something that can be discussed.

But, on that note, there’s one specific form of discussion that shows real mega-popularity. And that’s if people are fighting over a story. If a story inspires flame-wars, then it must be super important to the fandom! Otherwise, why would people be subjecting themselves to a flame war?

Joking aside, though, I’m not sure that’s the best sign of popularity. In the Avatar fandom, Embers is the most flame-warred story I know of, but its reviews-per-chapter count is less than Another Brother, which I’ve never seen anyone really criticize. Embers has 100 reviews/chapter on Fanfiction.net, while Another Brother has 129. AO3 isn’t a good measure because the Avatar fandom seems to be smaller there, and it wasn’t as popular a venue when those fics were first published.

There’s one sign of popularity that I’m never sure how to evaluate, and that’s Fanfic Fanart- when a fan-artist specifically draws a scene or character or whatever from a fanfic. I consider that a huge deal, but it can be hard to find. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fanart for Embers, for example, while my little Detective Noir Mai fanfic got one, and Embers is certainly the more popular of those two. And for those fanfics that seem to accumulate a lot of fanart, in some cases I’ve discovered that the author has been specifically commissioning it. (Which certainly isn’t a bad thing, and is in fact pretty awesome, IMO, but it does skew the numbers in trying to use fanart as an indicator of popularity.) So I think we can only take Fanfic Fanart as just a very cool, labor-intensive, aesthetically-pleasing form of comment/review.

So, that’s my view from down here on the ground. I get comments on all my stories, I’ve appeared on rec lists/discussions, and two of my stories even have TVTropes pages. So I’m doing quite well, IMO, without being ‘popular.’ I consider myself to be the equivalent of an indie director who is successful enough to stay in the business, but I’ll never get an offer to make a superhero movie. XD

[cristalknife]

On Comments, feedback anxiety on both the writer and the reader’s side

 If one could look into  my WIP draw, or take a glance at the fics I’ve actually posted, it becomes clear misunderstandings based on miscommunication is something I seem have a thing for. In all honesty is more of a lifelong study and recurring theme I keep stumbling on or consciously walking into. Preface: I am only human and mistakes can happen, but usually I try to handle the detailed label (also referred as Read the Tin or as written on the tin) of major warning with my writings that is usually missing in any other aspect of life, sort of a lovely user manual/preview so one could know to walk away before getting invested or worse triggered. 

Or at least know exactly what they signed up for.

Is it perfect? No but at least it’s there, as a writer I did all I could to avoid unpleasantness, the rest it’s up to the reader’s discretion. Which leads me to the heart of this post: comments, feedbacks, criticism, politically correctness, manners and the anxiety they produce in both the writer and the reader. 

The picture is big so I’ll divide in sides, but remember that people are made of multiple sides, and sometimes those sides are at odds or outwardly warring against each other. That’s pretty average for any irrational human being with emotions.

From the POV of an overthinking anxious writer:

1)  Ao3′s Kudos are sort of like a watered down thumbs up, after about 4-5 fic posted (or ~15K words of stories out there to be consumed), they became the kind of anxiety triggers feeding thoughts of why so many people/guests left a kudo but the story wasn’t good enough to warrant the time of a comment/review 2) Comments are lovely reminder someone found something in your words that made them react so strongly they felt like sharing that reaction with you was worth their time. 

2.1) Comments are also the cause of anxiety about their content before you have the courage to read what they says...

3) Criticisms and feedbacks can be a wonderful tool to improve your writing for the next story. But not if they are laced with insult, personal attacks in that case they are the kind of black hole that pushes people to stop writing all together, or at least stop sharing what they write. 

4) single emoji (♥), 2 char long (<3) comments takes years of effort and a lot of conditioning to remember to slip in reader mode and appreciate the effort it took to stop and do even that, instead of allowing doubts to gnaw at the back of your head with waaaiiiiit that’s all? was it good? was it bad? arrrghhh what does it even mean??? 

5) Statistics and numbers, those are the evilest of the most buggering things and the most vile tempters that will push you to compare your stories against others (a futile exercise in frustration and pointless reason to shred one’s own self confidence to the tiniest of pieces for literally nothing)

5.1) Especially when you have two writing mind frames: 

 writing the stories you want to read (and usually it is either a niche where you’ve already consumed all you could find so you write it because duh, more content might ignite back the fire please, or you haven’t found yet someone to say it how you want to read it) vs what I simply call 

 exorcism writing (the kind of free therapy exercise when something is bugging the heck out you and not leaving your mind so you put it down to words and then let them fly free, instead of trapping them on a diary you’d just return to read and start the vicious cycle all over again)

5.1.1) and your exorcism stories become more popular than the stories you want to read, because at the end of your raw ranting exorcism you managed to write something that would end up falling within mainstream tropes. Which just makes you sad because those were not the result of love and planning and endless hours of writing and editing that you put in your other stories.

6) I’m not writing fan fiction to be an educator, it is possible that my day job is being an educator, but unless I’m there writing textbooks, as a writer it is not my responsibility to teach the reader something that has to be authentic, realistic and a good practice. I’m just here to tell a story.  Or are you really telling me that you watch superheros movies and series and expect them to appear outside your window? If you just laughed then why are you looking at fanfic smut with the expectation of finding a more interesting and alternative way to have a sex ed lesson? If you subscribe to the school that a story has has to make sense... Let me ask have you ever read some of the greatest literature works like Frankenstain, Moby Dick, The Hobbit, Journey to the center of the Earth, Alice through the looking glass, Aeneas, if you did and subscribe to “fiction as to make sense” then please please enlighten me I’m rady to sit back and hear all the points you can make how any of those are realistic representations of how things go. If you  says that those are just stories told oh so long ago... Lets pick more recent ones, the Harry Potters books, Goosebumps, Twilight, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, 50 shades of , all those are listed as fiction  which yes sadly too many used as a portrait of theme touched in there as realistic because the story was not set in a fantastical world and made the mistake of treating a work of fiction as a documentary... Sorry people I’m a writer, choosing the right words matters, words meanings and definitions matter please  learn to think critically, and learn your words, there is a difference between fiction and documentary  6.1) At the same time it might be that I am the kind of writer who loves to add factually authentic things in my writings, someone who actually had spent hours and hours on research to make sure that what they have been writing is not utter and complete made up rubbish, and that’s ok too. I do not expect readers to assume it is correct or that it is purely made up, and if someone is curious they could use the comment to ask a question, I’ve never turned out a curious question, even when it was difficult to answer it

7) Just because I am writing about something, it doesn’t mean I support it...  Again those are stories, not a scientific report on a lab experiment, I can write about abusive relationships, doesn’t mean I support them, I could write about self harm or depression, doesn’t mean I am encouraging those behaviors, in fact those usually come with a Trigger Warning, why? because a reader should have the option to walk away from what should be just a moment of pleasure and relax, not finding themselves triggered because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of what was going to come in a story posted on the internet... 8) This far I’ve personally chosen to not push for comment, no beg necessary, I decided years ago to be the kind of self centered bad ass who writes for themselves, who’s not going to dangle the promises of more chapters in exchange for comments, I dislike the practice, and I find too exhausting shouting left and right hey hey I’ve written this read it read it... So I do get why my stories do not have such a large audience, it doesn’t help I’ve actually posted way less than what I’ve written over the years. I do welcome comments, though I have no clue on how to respond to short ones, or a single emoji/<3 to all chapters to those I end up answering only to the most recent one of that person and thank for their support. Longer comments are easier to answer because it gives me something to say back or comment/thanks for, though it becomes weird for me when someone speculate on future developments in what they wish to see, and since I’ve recently adopted the policy of posting only completed stories (even for the chaptered ones that will not be posted at the same time, the number of total chapter is not an estimation it is exactly the number of files I’ve divided the story into for reasons) because I do know whether something of that sort will happen or not, and I don’t want to put someone out of my story if they are too invested in see what they imagined happen... Though as I do write stories I’d like to read I’m quick to encourage aspiring writers to feel free to take that what if and work with it, just to please mention that my story inspired theirs and that I’d love to see what they come up with. Constructive criticisms, I do not have a beta for most of my works, I do not work too well depending on other people’s time, I confess even in the past I received criticisms that were not constructive if we push the boundaries and call those criticisms rather than just plain old complains, which is sort of the reason why I stopped explicitly encouraging communication. Because I do expect respect, you don’t know anything about me or what I believe in, you might make some guesses from my profile because I haven’t been shy and pretty open on them, but I won’t accept being personally attacked or talked to in a disrespectful manner just because you didn’t like what I wrote. I have no problem accepting criticisms, as long as they are criticisms and not just whining. You cannot come to me with “I hate your story” and leave it at that, you already took the time to express your opinion instead of simply walking away, the least you can do is explaining why... Otherwise I seriously don’t get why you wasted both of yours and more importantly my time and energies... From the POV of a spoonie reader who barely has the energy to read: 1)  Ao3′s Kudos are a life saver that allows you to show your appreciation (even if you are allowed only one as registered user) with only a click (and some times even that click takes so much out of you) instead of relegating you to invisible reader, barely visible number (*coughs*ff.net*coughs*)  or forcing you to make a story a favorite/followed 

2) Comments are the source of anxiety, because you might want to show support but would they get that or would it sound strange? will the author understand that a a ghsafdgsakdjfh (read: key smash) happened with excitement and love and you’ve no other words to express it? 2.1) also trying to put your support in words when you are in your pj cozily being a blanket burrito and reading from your phone in bed because there’re no more spoon left for the day it’s hard 

3) The author asked for R&R, or welcomes comments and constructive criticism. You loved the story enough to spend energies to

point out things that were plain plot hole or downright inconsistency or lose ends, pointing out botched translations from your own mother tongue and offering correction that were not google translated, in ao3 case pointing out lack of some appropriate tags, which would have 1 improved your story’s visibility and 2 allowed the reader to choose whether they wanted to read it or not both points that would have benefit you as author...

Only for the author to react: 

- badly with a why are you such a nitpick hadn’t anyone told you that you should just stay silent if you have nothing nice to tell me? - Excuse me you’re the one asking for my opinion not my adoration, I gave you exactly what you asked for, if you cannot handle your work being nitpicked or the holes in your plot being publicly poked then there’re fabulous people called Beta reader who will give you the needed dose of though love in private get one..

- badly with a don’t like don’t read -  legit reader’s counter point is  I wouldn’t have read it if you had given me a way to know then what I discovered now  [personal addendum, on a not that well low energy day it takes me less about 3 mins and half to read 1.5K words don’t came at me on your 1k long story and tell me I could have stopped reading when I noticed it wasn’t that good for me...I was done with it before I could get any warning]

- dismissively because a meet cute  clearly is an AU  - Bless your heart if you need me to point out to you that there is a difference between an Alternative Universe (AU) and a Canon Divergence and the fact that   meet cute is a trope  which in fandoms usually implies different circumstances within the fandom’s canon world  of the first meeting between the characters in the main relationship but doesn’t automatically include different premises for the character example: 

in canon: characters from a magical supernatural fandom one a wizard with magic, one a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons, in their first meeting the fighter saved the wizard’s life. 

in a meet cute:  a wizard and a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons meet in the middle of the forest where the fighter was hunting for food failing miserably and the wizard took pity on the fighter and offered to share their dinner, if the fighter dared to step inside the wizard’s home

in a No Power/Human AU meet cute: where there is no magic, one of the two is a barista who uses flirty coffee jokes lines to call the other’s person order, and finally discover they are an accountant so instead they start using math puns to get the accountant’s attention. 

Those are all valid stories but as an author don’t came at me believing that just because you mention a trope that is enough to distinguish between the 2° and 3° examples, or that having mentioned the trope gives you the standing to look down at me if I do have my own reasons that you do not know about  for wanting to read only stories like the second pitch and get upset but still tell you in a polite way that there are missing tags in your story, especially when you’ve falsely advertise your 3° like pitch as if it was a 2° one and I get upset and let you know about it and do so with the curtesy of signing it with my name rather than leave an guest/anonymous comment 

- shrugging off issues with the tags with a Oh but I’m bad at tagging  -

then I have 3 things to say to you buddy one) that’s not an excuse if you haven’t learnt how to do it yourself get a beta, get a friend, read more and compare what your story tells with a similar one and how that one is tagged, there’re ways Ignorance is not an excuse; 

two) you can’t claim you’re bad at tagging but then refuse to listen when someone is pointing out to you more tags for your story, dud learn how search engines work, searching by tag is basically having a filtered search, the more tags your fit your story the more venues your story can appear in reader’s search for something to read... which means visibility for your work, are you really telling me that you dislike to have that and would prefer less people reading what you post? then sorry but I think you’re doing it wrong and should get a diary instead, not post them on the internet.

addendum: still claiming to be bad at it after having posted over 40 stories and all posted in recent times in the span of a couple of months, just suggest you lack the intelligence to learn how to do things. Which only encourages me to never ever get close to your works, certainly to never promote or share them if not actively discouraging my friends from spending their time on them.

three) and guess what?  there is a frikking I'm Bad At Taggingtag for that too!!!

As a reader I might be ranting in this post, but the long effect of those is a growing apathy and increased unwillingness to spend my energies for commenting unless I’d really really really really liked or loved a story, or I have something more than a one liner to share, which while I intellectually know it might be unfair to let the whole pay for the disrespect of few, my own survival instinct is glad I’m not spreading myself even thinner...

truthful disclaimer: in all fairness it has been my experience, that those reactions usually come from authors with already quite few stories or a decent word count out there. 

New authors are still very much enthusiastic and happy about even the smallest crumbs of recognition or encouragement, which in return is lovely because it recognise that my own time and energy as reader are worthy, that it does take effort to share an opinion or encouragement or suggestion.

4) The author might never know how that day I posted that single emoji, or two character <3,  it was one of those bad days when even opening a small water bottle to swallow down the painkillers was too much, when using a finger to scroll down the page to reach the end of the story had wiped out more energies than I could really afford and yet I still pushed myself to leave a sign that I was there and appreciated their story

5) readers should be allowed to have the “if you thought writing was hard, try commenting other people words” tag...  because sometimes especially on older platforms (yes ff.net I’m looking at you) as a reader I can’t find the energies to wipe up something to say so I become a silent invisible reader. And sometimes it’s really that I am able to stand only stories with certain characteristics, personally for example I do not have the emotional fortitude to read more a certain amount of Work In Progress at the same time across multiple fandoms because my brain can’t recall all the details and I might not feel to rereading the story from the beginning every single time there is a new chapter... 6) Maybe it’s because I’m way out of my teens, maybe it’s because even in my teens and before stories were my safe place, my escape, I do not expect things to be factually correct in stories, but I am a logic driven person, I will see those plot holes and I might even poke through 'em if I find your story good enough that I feel it would be a pity not pointing those things out. You cannot tell a classic vampire story (not the twilight kind of sun sparkling vampires but the sun burn me to ashes kind) and have your group of vampires prancing about at noon of a clear summer day without some sort of reason for that to work. I promise you, I’m not picky, I will accept ridiculous reasons like they were standing under and umbrella covered from head to toes and none of their skin was exposed to the sunlight, but do put the effort to give me a reason why I should believe it was intentional, or do not cry and complain if I do decide to point out dude you’ve normal vampires that are sunbathing and did not become piles of ashes that’s not plausible... 7) Stories are just that, something to listen to, they don’t have to have a moral for them to be worthy of being shared, they don’t have to be a mirror  of your thoughts, or they could be a mirror of your beliefs, and if I am commenting on them I’m commenting on the story itself not your connection to it. And I do need you to advertise in advance if there’re things that might be triggerish, because what might be  just a mental exercise of stepping outside your shoes, if not done might result in me walking into a panic attack while maybe I was just recuperating for one and trying to find comfort or a distraction. While I as a reader cannot know you author and where you come from, unless you want to make an ass of u and me do not assume you know where I am or what path I’m walking in my life as a reader.  8) I despise people telling me what to do, especially if I didn’t ask for an opinion... If someone (who doesn’t have an economical or authorative position over me) demands me to do something the chances I’ll be do it, especially if I was going to do it before, become nil instantaneously. I’ve been running and lurking in writing circles and fanfictions for closer to three decades at the time this is being written, and from the very beginning I found disgusting and deplorable the practice some authors adopted of bargaining reaching certain numbers of comments/kudos in exchange for the next chapter. I can respect an author saying I don’t want to get this or that, but the final result is that most likely I would walk away without commenting even if it would have been a story I would have otherwise supported. There’re few authors I do know personally, at least superficially through other channels, that have this kind of disclaimers and I still comment. But that’s because I have an appreciation and will to support the person themselves who also happened to be authors. 

[visceralcoma]

i, o and s for the fanfic ask game? 🧡

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

Less of a guilty pleasure now but it started off as one years ago (its not anymore because I’ve stopped giving a fuck about critics and realized if male characters can get away with it in mainstream media then fuck I can get away with it in fanfic) but Mary Sues, Self Inserts, and Portal Fantasy fanfic. The idea of just inserting yourself into the story and becoming the hero or just the protagonist is always my favorite. Especially when canon is absolutely lacking in terms of female, poc, or queer characters - my avatar into the story gets to encompass all these things without having to make a billion and one other in world NPCs to make up for it or change canon character portrayals right off the bat.  is it the lazy route? Probably... but I prefer to use the energy on world building rather than character creation or trying to remember which twisted canon character portrayal am I working with now. 

O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters?

To be honest... there is no set way I start a story. Sometimes I’ll just have a vague character idea first that I throw in and just follow around on their day to day until I get to some semblance of a plot and other times I’ll have a plot first but not a full character yet and it will be like 15 chapters in when I realize my protag is a blank face and I have to find a way to show their personality.  I much prefer the first method because it means I build up the character and get into their state of mind, even if it means I end up with like 5-10k worth of words that I have to throw out. it’s a lot harder and trickier for me to do the latter.  In fact, the latter is what happened for my fic No Deed Left Unpunished. I’m on chapter 25 of that and have only JUST discovered a semblance of my OC Cosette’s personality.  The other characters she’s interacted with are way more interesting.

 S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

lol refer to answer to question I.  I love the Portal Fantasy/isekai trope. But beyond that would be...

Fanfic Magnet:  Instead of the Minor Character causing a lot of fanfiction - it’s just me writing fanfic about them.  I love background characters that only get a brief appearance and we get one or two lines of their personality/circumstance - leaving us (if we choose) to fill it in. For Example, in Dragon Age, I have a fic that heavily features Felix Alexius and a the NPC tranquil Clemence from Redcliffe. Those two and my OC protag are the main characters.

Missing Scene:  So scenes that clearly had to have happened, but with the addition of how it messes up.  Like because I write primarily Oracular Portal Fantasy (OC’s dropped into fictional world who know the future), there are moments where canonically we have Scene Z, but in order to get to Scene Z here were Scenes X and Y that had to happen off screen for scene Z to occur.  But because my OC doesn’t know about those missing scenes - they cause Scene Y to now be Scene Y(T) . So now instead of X+Y=Z,  it’s   X+Y(T) = with an unknown result. It could still be Z, or it could Z but with a twist the OC doesn’t know about. Unforeseen circumstances to their meddling or just their presence.

Dark fic/Realism fic:  This one goes hand in hand with missing scene, because there are a lot of messed up things that can be implied from canon. Like these behaviors characters have imply something messed up happened previous - things we never see or have yet to see in canon. I like writing those. Whether it’s realistic or dark...usually depends on the reader.

[sadbi-hours]

Made for @aosrecweek​ for Throwback Thursday

Oh, wow! Guys…it was like y’all read my mind! I’ve been wanting to make an AoS rec list for a bit now, but I just never had the self-motivation to put myself into gear and do it!

Well, I have now…and I really enjoyed putting this list together! I actually hunted across the internet for some of these fanfic recs, because while my tastes were different back in the day, I still love a good fanfic…and I think that still counts for something. 

Plus, I wasn’t really into saving stories that I really liked back in the day. So fair warning, I haven’t read some of these stories in a really long time and my mini reviews might be a bit off, but I still believe that a good fanfic will stick with ya through the ages. 

I hope you found these fanfics to be just as good as I do and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them too:)

P.S. I still plan to make a whole rec list of other stories I like too…with Ot3+, brotps, and all the het and slash fics that your heart desires! 

i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain by owlvsdove

It takes Skye two seconds to realize they are seducing her, and another second to realize it is seriously working.

(In which Skye, to her absolute horror, falls in love with the science babies.)

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read it?: 

This story is very personal to me! Because, not only was it the first fanfic for the AoS fandom that I’d ever read..but it also introduced me to the world of ot3′s and the possibility that a poly relationship could actually work not only in fiction but in the real world too. That’s how real this relationship was for me…that’s how beautifully written it was… how completely true to how I’d believe that Fitz, Daisy (or Skye at the time of the story), and Jemma might have started their relationship back in the day, if you know, mainstream network had had the balls to explore that route.

I adore this fic! It still holds a special place for me. I do wish that the author had kept the FF.net version of the story up. There were a few things I loved that had existed in that version that are deleted out in the only existing  one…but that’s just a minor pet peeve of mine. I would still recommend this story if you love fluffy and sexy ot3 action with some minor angst, because Daisy always has to make things complicated for herself!   

Like A Stain Series by AgentSkyeMorse

Skye’s words appeared when she was 17. Trip’s words appeared when he decided to join S.H.I.E.L.D. Hunters heart is broken when finds his Soulmate. Bobbi doesn’t believe in Soulmates… That’s what she tells herself.

Pairing: Bobbi Morse/ Daisy Johnson/ Lance Hunter (aka I don’t know their ship name), and some past Daisy/Triplet 

Why you should read?:.

I don’t really remember much about this series, other than it’s a Canon-divergent post-2 and Soulmate AU. 

I do however remember it being really freaking good! I loved how the characters were not completely OCC like some AU ‘verse’s can make their main characters be. I believed that all these could have really happened if some of Canon’s events had happened differently…and there was such a things as Soulmate universes. 

There are some minor changes made to AoS’s canon, but that’s to be expected. However, I really liked how the writer still made me believe in Bobbi, Lance, and Daisy’s chemistry really well. And it had some really freaking hot sex scenes too, if I remember correctly. 

Mascot by Philote 

In which Skye adopts an orphaned dog, much to the varying delight and chagrin of her teammates.

Pairing: Gen/ No expressed Ships I believe

Why you should read?: 

It’s just a really cute story about the team’s varying reactions to Skye sneaking a little puppy on board the bus. It’s just pure s1 team fluff, and it actually has weary but protective Ward that I think is adorable…before you know, Ward became the evil asshole that he is. 

If you just want team fluff with very little angst, than this is the story for you! 

the heart is hard to translate (all my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling) by awkwardspiritanimals

Leopold Fitz is going to do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Even if it means turning their household items into deadly weapons.

The other three just want him to get some sleep.

(tripfitzskimmons polyamory)

Pairing: Tripfitzskimmons 

Why you should read?:

A post season 1 Ot4, where Fitz feels helpless because of his brain injury and tries to help in the only way he knows how and still can…by making everyday objects into deadly weapons…

Trip, Jemma, and Daisy try to be understanding, but would like it very much if Fitz would stopped turning their possessions into weapons. 

It’s very sweet little ficlet, but does have some Fitz angst. So beware of that.  

love letters to a ghost by arsonistlullabye 

Skye is haunted the ghost of a boy who wasn’t strong enough. Fitz is haunted by a girl who makes him want to be stronger.

Pairing: Fitzdaisy/ Fitzskye

Why you should read?: 

This story is set in an alternate AoS ‘verse, where Fitz couldn’t handle the pressure and loneliness of being one of the youngest to attend S.H.I.E.L.D. academy…and trigger warning, kills himself and begins to haunt the Academy as a ghost.  

Years later, Skye attends and seeing her go down the same path as him, does everything he can to help her become her best self..while also slowly falling in love with her. I don’t want to spoiler anymore, but it’s a really good…but i’ll be honest and say that depending on how you view it, it might not have the happiest ending, but I believe it fit perfectly with the story.   

Take me away to some place real by Florchis 

After the Framework, Fitz decides to go see his mother for a few days and takes Jemma and a reluctant Daisy with him. Things are not easy, but helped by three late-night conversations, Daisy learns that they can choose to not make them hard.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

I feel like I’m cheating a bit by rec-ing this fic, since it’s a prompt of mine gifted to me through a @aosficnet2 exchange a few years back, but where Florchis decided to take the idea far exceeded my expectations. This story…left me speechless.It made me cry. It was…just so beautiful and hopeful… yet bittersweet. 

Nothing’s sugar coated…or wrapped up neatly in a little box in this story. They’re all broken by what they experienced in the Framework. Daisy’s left with old and new insecurities to wade through, Fitz can’t always tell the difference between Reality and the Framework, and Jemma’s just trying to hold everybody and herself together…and a trip to see Fitz’s amazing Mom doesn’t automatically fix everything.

But it makes their traumas more manageable…It makes them want to try to be better, not only in their relationship but as people as well. Oh, man! You have to read this story…especially if you were left broken yourself by season 4. Seriously, go read this! 

I couldn’t in good conscious rec one of Florchis’s post-framework stories without rec-ing one of @theclaravoyant. You can go read it here if you like!  

six birthdays skye had by zauberer_sirin

Birthdays are the worst. And hers are not even real.

Pairing:  Skoulson

Why you should read?:

Alright! Hear me out! I, myself , as in me now, in no way ships Coulson and Daisy in a romantic relationship, but when I first started out reading AoS fanfics, I was experimenting…trying to figure out my tastes and what I shipped and liked romantically. 

And I can admit that I’ve read other Skoulson fics in my time, but this fanfic is the only one that I’ll willing recommended…because the romantic aspect of Skoulson’s relationship was left ambiguous, at least to me. It was more of a character study of how Skye has always views and copes with her birthdays through the years and the one time, she actually liked being born…and even though, I hate it, her relationship with Coulson has a lot to do with her acceptance of it. 

But I wouldn’t blame anybody for skipping over this one, I haven’t read it since I read it the first time just because I would have to stomach the romantic Skoulson in it…but I feel like it’s still worth recommending. It’s a pretty good Skye/Daisy character piece.   

Along the Way by theclaravoyant

When Shield’s two youngest prodigies shake hands for the very first time, their expressions are exactly as you might expect for two people who know they’ve just met their soul mates. But for this particular pair there’s something else as well.

Confusion.

-

Sometimes finding your soulmate(s) is not as simple as it seems. Then again, sometimes what we spend most of our time looking for, has been right under our noses all along.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

A FSK Soulmate AU that went a long way to redefining my outlook on the trope. Fitz and Simmons’ quest to discover who their other soulmate is and what the weird soul mark they have means is really well done and completely in character with how Fitzsimmons are as individuals and as a unit… 

It’s just a very well written AU that’s I’d recommended anytime of the day. You should read it.   

and when we burst, begin again by  owlvsdove

May gets hurt in the line of duty. Jemma tries to fill her shoes.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?:

If you haven’t noticed by now, there is a pretty consistent theme to my fanfic recs…and that’s the hurt/comfort or heavy angst trope and this one fits that bill to a tee.

Set in a post season 1 Canon-Divergence world I believe, where I think Ward really injures May and Jemma take it upon herself to become the team’s glue…and how it slowly chips away at her emotional sanity. It’s really well written and I think you guys will like it…if you don’t mind the heavy angst too. 

break my heart into pieces on the floor by hpfreakster

Months earlier she had stood there ready to give her life for them, now she stands there pointing a gun at Skye and Fitz.

Pairing:  BioSpecialist with a side order of Fitzskye

Why you should read?: 

An alternate end to season 1, a role reversal with Jemma being the Hydra agent who betrayed the team, A flawed but ultimately goodhearted Ward, and a possibly triple agent Simmons…? What more could you ask for in a fascinating, alternate plot twist and development? 

I know some can’t even read about Ward as a main character in any fashion, but I really loved this fic…how it was done…how Ward was portrayed. He wasn’t perfect…or really even likable…but he loved his team and would do anything for them, even haunting down the woman he loves to avenge Fitz and Skye. 

I think that’s a really cool story;)  

He’s Not A Monkey by  AgentMaryMargaretSkitz

“He’s Leo. Fitz. The dog is Fitz.”

When an 084 explodes, Skye sees that Fitz has turned into a puppy. Some Biospecialist and pre-Skitz.

Pairing:  Another Biospecialist with some minor Fitzskye

Why you should read?:

Wow! Another fluffy dog story rec! I really need to find my AoS fluff in other tropes! LOL! 

But who can resist Fitz being turned into a adorable freaking puppy…who adores Skye and Jemma…and keeps biting Ward in various places I think! I couldn’t! Haha! 

stretch your arms around me by  Conifer

With them, Skye learned to love.

She learned how to give it just as much as she learned to feel it. It was abstract and solid and all-consuming, a mess that left her feeling dizzy and weightless. It was impossible to put a finger on but easy enough to place; she knew the heart-pounding feeling when she had it.

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?: 

A kind of a sad Fitzskimmon fic, where Skye knows that her relationship with Fitzsimmons will come to an end someday…because well, according to Skye, it has to. In her life, happiness never lasts for long…but she’s going learn from and enjoy her time together with them for as long as it lasts. 

It’s a bittersweet, but heartwarming fic that fits right in my alley. Go ahead and read it…but be prepared to have your heart broken.  

The zeroh law of thermodynamics by  Florchis

Fitz and Simmons are each other’s soulmates. Daisy isn’t. Fitz and Simmons don’t care. Daisy does. Sort of. Or: Jemma wants them to tell her their fantasies, Daisy wants a tattoo and Fitz wants to be a gentleman. (They all succeed.)

Pairing: FSK/ Fitzskimmons

Why you should read?: 

I couldn’t rec @theclaravoyant‘s Soulmate AU without recommending @florchis!

This story showed me that love comes in many forms and variations…and just because Daisy isn’t Fitzsimmons’ soulmate doesn’t stop them from pursuing a meaningful romantic triad with her. Of course, like any real relationship, there are trail and errors…misunderstanding and miscommunications…but they never let that keep them down because they love each other and will do anything to make their unconventional (in every sense of the word) relationship work. 

It’s a really good Soulmate AU story. You should read it…along with @florchis‘s FSK stories here and here. I just love the different and interesting ways she makes the FSK ship play out and begin. 

Apples and Dandelions by  theclaravoyant

After Fitz’ father sends a number of threatening messages and an ultimatum to Shield, Fitz decides it’s time to confront his father. As it turns out, the apple can fall as far from the tree as it likes, especially when there’s someone there to catch it.

Pairing: Fitzsimmons with Fitz & Daisy brotp 

Why you should read?: 

I know that I didn’t really rec manyGen or brotp stories on this list…and I’ll be fair with y’all, but I really do view the majority of my bromance’s in Television and Films as romantic relationships too..and most of the time, I’d rather read shipper fics than purely brotp ones. 

But this fic was so good that I could not share it on my list…but I won’t bore you with the details. It’s a theclaravoyant fic and I think that they’re all amazing.  

[theashemarie]

Demo Brew Ch. 1 | Pearlina

☆ Reblogs appreciated! ☆

↪Chapter 2: [The Squid Sisters]

↪Chapter 3: [The Song]

Read one chapter ahead on AO3!

[It starts as a simple bet--Pearl's attempt to prove to her father that she can work a minimum wage job like anyone else. It quickly becomes anything but simple. A web of secrets, a music opportunity, and a chance at love--what could go wrong?]

[The coffee shop AU has always been a favorite trope of mine, so I decided to just go for it. Plus, I love putting my own spin on these things--domesticity and small, meaningful moments are my bread and butter. So, this fic is the culmination of everything I love.

I flubbed the timeline a little in this, but that's mostly to do with the timing of the entrances of certain characters. This story still takes place in the world of Splatoon--there's just a little bit of a timing change, and Callie and Marie enjoy secrets more. As a result, I've tried to follow a bit of the inkling/octoling anatomy (mostly the inclusion of three hearts and the avoidance of any reference to bones). Just a heads up.]

Chapter 1: The Bet

Here’s the deal: Pearl got this job to make a point. Her father said, “You wouldn’t last one week in a dead-end, minimum wage job,” and Pearl, competitive and aggressive to a fault said, “WANNA BET!!” in a voice that was all capital letters and begged more than one exclamation point. So, she trotted her little ass to the nearest over-priced coffeeshop and applied, right there, on the spot. The owner, Callie, hired her immediately, because she liked her fighting spirit and wanted a cut of Pearl’s hundred thousand gold winnings if she pulled it off.

That was two months ago.

Pearl doesn’t know why she stayed. (That’s a lie. She stayed because Callie needed her. With Marie off to Calamari County to care for their aged (“Not decrepit!” Cap’n Cuttlefish declared as Marie guided him out over six weeks ago) grandfather until such a time as he stopped trying to get into the sewers (don’t ask), Callie was down half her staff. Pearl stayed because Callie gave her the sad eyes, the big ones that looked like a sunset on the ocean.) Her father upped the ante—an extra fifty thousand gold for every week she stayed—but she doesn’t need the money. Not really. Her allowance is building steadily in her account and she still lives at home, where her every need is taken care of. She doesn’t take Callie’s money because she doesn’t need it, so she’s working for free. “Volunteer work,” Callie assures her, “it looks good on your resume.”

Fresh Start is a small place, with only a handful of tables and no to-go window. There’s exactly two people who work there—Callie and Marie, co-owners and cousins, who somehow had enough money to open a coffeeshop in the middle of Inkopolis Plaza, the richest area of the city. There’s a decently sized pastry case and their sweets rotate every day of the week so you can never get the same thing two days in a row. Their savory offerings are mostly sandwiches, though Callie is looking into learning how to make flatbread pizzas. Callie handles most of the paperwork while Marie seems to enjoy working the counter, especially the fancy espresso machine. Overall, it’s a small place, a blip on most people’s morning and evening commutes, but there’s something about the familiar, friendly atmosphere and staff that keeps people coming back.

Pearl beginning to think that this is a distraction. Her father doesn’t approve of her sudden swerve into the punk scene, mostly because he doesn’t like to see his little princess wearing so much black, but she isn’t just going to drop that for some stressful job. Sure, Callie is great to work with, but the customers can be awful, especially because they’re smack in the middle of Inkopolis Plaza, where all the fifteen-year-olds obsessed with sports come after turf wars. You don’t know true brats until you’re face to face with a sweaty fifteen-year-old who has to have their latte with exactly two and a half pumps of sweetener in it, and Pearl is the queen of brats so she can say that.

So yeah, the punk gig. She still does it. Late at night, when her dad is out of town usually. She’s twenty-years-old and still sneaking out of the house. The irony isn’t lost on her.

This is all to say, Pearl is ready to jump ship as soon as she can. The second Marie steps foot back into the store, she’s peaceing out and collecting her check from the International Bank of Dad, splitting it with Callie (because she’s not about to renege on that deal), and never looking back. The world needs to hear her music, and, really, she just wants to scream into a mic at the pit of night. Is that too much to ask?

Then, predictably, things change. Marina walks in, and Pearl finds herself returning to the shop, even after Marie has given up on keeping their grandfather out of the sewer (don’t ask).

Pearl realizes that she’s in love with Marina about two days after meeting her. It isn’t a surprise. She falls in love a lot—with hips and large, gentle hands and sleep-heavy limbs and bright, alive eyes and long legs and long hair and short hair and sometimes even with a laugh. She isn’t picky. She falls in love with pieces of people all the time. The most recent one, a fling of a relationship on the road with her band, was a girl who loved human fashion; Pearl fell in love with the way she wore her old-fashioned hats, cocked to one side, tentacles cut short into a bob. She really liked the bob. She might have copied the bob.

Of course, relationships with pieces of people never work out. But, Pearl always reasons, she’s young, she’s wild, she’s got piercings, and she’s disappointing her father with her screamy music. Her bandmates don’t get along and it seems like they’re sick of her, but she doesn’t let that get her down; typical punk stuff, she’s assured herself. She’s going through a phase where she’s allowed to only love fractions of individuals. It’s not healthy, but she’s coping, more than anything, with broken hearts. She always has at least one broken heart.

Until, of course, Marina walks in, orders her coffee from Marie with a soft, accented voice, and Pearl has to try very hard to keep her eyes in her head.

“That’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” Pearl hisses to Marie, as she turns to froth up some milk for a latte. “Do you know her?”

“Her name’s Marina,” Marie answers, uninterested, in her own world. She’s always like that—like she’s far away, thinking about some other reality, some other world. Calamari County or something. Man, these country people.

“You actually know her?” Pearl demands.

Marie smiles then, a small thing, and holds up the paper cup, treating Pearl to her slanted handwriting—Marina.

“Oh,” Pearl says, and sounds just as foolish as she feels. “What’d she order?”

“Green tea latte. You can go talk to her, y’know. I won’t tell Mom.”

She’s talking about Callie, who has a strict no flirting policy after an unfortunate incident involving Marie and a dare—chain flirting for tips, which Pearl let her keep, just because she actually did it; she even flirted with the tiny horseshoe crab that owns the weapon shop. Pearl swore he was thisclose to hiding in his shell. It was especially hilarious because Pearl knows that Marie is like her—she falls for girls, sometimes boys, but mostly, Marie maintains, she loves food. Pearl can respect that.

“But, she’s so...” Pearl glances in Marina’s direction. She’s standing at the pickup counter, scrolling through her phone. She’s got on an oversized sweatshirt and tight leggings with boots that Pearl immediately wants for her own wardrobe. She also has large, expensive headphones over her ears. But, most notable is her hair. It’s so different from what she’s used to seeing in the plaza, where being fresh means having one of two haircuts. And it moves so fluidly, like a silk sheet being spread over a bed.

“She’s so...?” Marie prompts.

“She’s so... out of my league!” Pearl moans, modulating her tone so that she can’t be heard over the percolating coffee pot. It comes out as a low whine.

Marie glances back at Marina and then back to Pearl, at her dark, but designer clothes, and her pink-tinged bob, and then at her boots. “If you say so,” she says, and then turns to slide the latte across the counter. “Marina, this one’s yours.”

The first time Pearl gets up the nerve to talk to Marina, the Squid Sisters are playing over the radio, which gives her the opening she wants. Marina always has those headphones, so she has to know her stuff about music—and anybody who’s anybody knows the Squid Sisters.

The greatest mystery of Inkopolis, the Squid Sisters are the most secretive musical act that’s ever hit the mainstream idol scene. They cover their faces at performances and don’t appear on television, which really makes Pearl wonder sometimes. What if she’s passed them on the street? The smoke and mirrors make them even more of a commodity, and then they drop music without warning, as if they exist outside of the laws of record labels. Pearl is something of a fangirl, but everyone is. The Squid Sisters have it all—adoring fans, lots of gigs, and anonymity. Pearl doesn’t quite understand it; she wants to be adored, wants to crowd surf, wants to be approached on the street for autographs, but she can respect the desire to be left alone.

“Turn that off,” Callie says from the back room. She’s never been a huge Squid Sisters fan. But then, she doesn’t seem to like music much on the whole. She and Marie never sing, never dance, just keep their heads down and make coffee. Pearl has been trying to shake them out of it, but they’re both stubborn in their own way.

“No, leave it,” Marie says from where she’s spreading cream cheese on a bagel for someone. She’s got that smirk, the one that she always wears when Callie starts in on the Squid Sisters. “I like this song.”

Callie makes a loud sigh. “Of course you do.”

Fresh Start is mildly busy right now, probably because it’s near lunch, so Pearl is taking orders. Not her favorite job, but it beats making the coffee. And, this way, she can duck into the back if Marina ever shows.

It makes her uneasy, how unsteady Marina makes her feel. Usually, she’s great at this. She makes girls swoon with a bright, sharp smile, and then makes them fall for her with a well-placed hand and simple pickup line. But Marina? She’s scared to talk to her. It’s not normal, and Pearl doesn’t like.

But, also, she’s determined to see her again, at least once, before she quits and returns to her gilded castle of wealth. (There’s always an “I want to see her again” after she sees her again. It’s a never-ending cycle.)

Except, today, when Marina walks in, jangles the bell, Marie refuses to trade Pearl jobs. The Squid Sisters are singing “City of Color” over the speakers and Marie is grinning at her like a shark. “I’m perfectly comfortable right here,” she says, and turns the blender on so Pearl can’t beg further.

“Callie...!” Pearl tries, but then Marina is there, right in front of her. She has on a beanie today, so her headphones are around her neck, and Pearl can see how well-loved they are, just by how discolored the cushioning is.

“I’m up to my elbows in cookie dough! You’re on your own!” Callie yells back. Behind her, she hears Marie snort.

“Hello...?” Marina says, unaware of the power play occurring behind the counter. Pearl forces herself to smile.

“Hi!” she chirps, voice incredibly high-pitched and slightly panicked. There goes her hard-punk exterior. “H-how can I help you?”

Marina hums as she looks up at the menu. She gets something different every day, as if she’s cycling through the whole menu before picking something she really likes. Her finger comes up to tap her bottom lip, which really is unfair. Pearl has to force herself to swallow.

“Iced coffee, please. No sweetener.”

“Iced coffee!” Pearl yells, not because that’s what they do here but because she’s panicked. Marina is so... so pretty... and regal and—and—and...

Okay, so maybe Pearl is a lost cause.

“I heard her,” Marie mumbles from behind her. Above them, the song changes from “City of Color” to “Ink Me Up.” Callie appears, mysteriously free of cookie dough, and goes for the radio.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she declares.

“Oh, please leave it,” Marina calls, looking past Pearl and to Callie. When Pearl, Callie, and Marie all turn to look at her, she fidgets, pulls her hat tighter over her head. “Sorry, it’s just... The Squid Sisters changed my life.”

From anyone else, that would have sounded dramatic, but Marina says it without a single ounce of irony. She looks down at her hands, with their long turquoise tips.

“No problem,” Callie pipes, suddenly back to her happy, chipper, non-Squid Sister self.

“I’m very glad,” Marie puts in, as she appears beside Pearl with an iced coffee in her hands. “I’m very glad that the Squid Sisters helped you.”

Marina doesn’t say anything, merely takes the coffee with a small smile on her face. “How much...?” she asks.

“On the house,” Callie says, and she disappears back into the back room.

After the Great Zapfish goes missing, Callie and Marie leave to care for their grandfather. Something about his weak hearts. They leave Pearl in charge, and she promptly closes the store for half its hours, because there’s no way she can run this place by herself.

She does okay, all told. She considers asking for her father’s help, but she doesn’t want him buying her out of this problem. She needs to figure it out.

Mostly, that involves thanking people for their patience, because she not only has to handle the money, but make the coffee, clean the tables, and wash the dishes. Callie insisted on using real plates and cups unless the drinks were to-go, which left Pearl with large stacks of mugs in the sink at the end of every hour. She’s dealing with it.

Marina appears every day that week, and every time she asks after Callie and Marie. Pearl answers honestly—“I have no idea where they are or when they’re coming back!”—and Marina tries her hardest not to laugh at Pearl’s anxious, out of control energy. They even have real conversations, which is a step up from Pearl’s lovestruck sputterings of a few weeks ago.

“So, what do you do?” Pearl asks today, as she scoops ice into a cup for a frappe.

“...do...?” Marina asks, as if she’s unsure of the word, feeling the sound of it in her mouth.

“Y’know, like for a job?”

“Oh!” Marina laughs at herself, and it’s possibly the cutest thing Pearl’s ever heard. She has to try very hard not to grin stupidly. “I work in retail.” She gestures out the window, in the direction of the Galleria and its overpriced shops. “On the weekends, I’m an indie producer. I do a lot of remixes. I’m working on some Squid Sisters now.”

Pearl feels like she’s been struck by lightning. “You do what? No way! I’m in a band! I knew you were into music!”

“What’s your band called? Maybe I’ve heard of you.”

“Doubt it.” Pearl slams the blender closed and turns it on. They stare at each other for a few seconds as it does its work. “It’s punk,” she continues when it’s done. “Probably not your style.”

Marina shrugs. “Can’t know until I listen. Will you bring me a sample?”

Her eyes are so bright and excited. Pearl can’t feel two of her hearts, they’re pounding so hard. “Yeah,” she says, “I will!”

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Hey, are you not aware that people get notified when you reblog their posts with commentary? Like it's true that fewer of these notifications get through when the post has a lot of people interacting with it (like this one) so to a certain extent it's bad luck, but still.

I'm a random stranger you've never met who woke up this morning and checked my notifications to find somebody talking about me rather snootily in the third person and saying that I was trapped in an echo chamber who'd lost all contact with the outside world. Shockingly this did not improve my day.

You're not the first person to find fault with my space orcs posts— or any of my headcanons for the various fandoms I am or have been part of— but this is the rudest anybody's been in doing so lately, which is why I'm replying.

If you're going to be like this about one of my posts then please consider either vagueposting about it ("I've noticed some posts that…" "I recently saw a post that…"), or screenshotting the damn thing and cutting out my url. Don't actively join me in conversation and then act as if I'm not in the room.

Anyway, the thing about this post is that, by the time I wrote it, the Humans Are Space Orcs thing had progressed beyond being a meme to becoming basically a full fledged fandom.

It didn't have an established canon to centre itself around, but otherwise it behaved basically the same way as any more formal fandom, and like most fandoms it had developed its own tropes that commonly appeared in fics and headcanons.

Back when I wrote this post— three years ago— I was pretty active in this fandom, and 99% of my dash was just Space Orcs content. Which meant that I was seeing a lot of "humans are big and fearsome and super strong and our sweat is corrosive and…" and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all that stuff immensely, but it was a very common trope.

Yeah, it was kind of an echo chamber. And if I'd gone out into the street and started talking about this, or ever intended to publish something along these lines, and acted like it was some big subversion, then you might be justified in saying I'd lost all contact with the outside world.

But I didn't. I posted it on Tumblr, a site that at the time had a hugely active Space Orcs fandom, on a blog that at the time was mainly comprised of Space Orcs content, and was mainly followed by people who were interested in Space Orcs stuff— aka the same people who were writing all the "humans are big and aliens are scared of us" stuff.

That's why I specifically referenced "Humans Are Weird posts" at the beginning. It's intended solely to be a subversion of tropes found in those particular posts.

I didn't have to say where I'd got the trope of humans being overly sociable and friendly, because the presence of that trope would have been basically taken as a given the moment I said which fandom it was for. Nobody questioned the "a lot of people thought that humans would become space orcs" thing, because it was intended for Humans Are Space Orcs fans, who would mostly have recognised it as a self-aware nod to the existence of the fandom.

I get that you can't be blamed for not knowing this context (since it's been three years, the fandom seems to have died down quite a bit and I no longer have that much content for it on my blog) but you can be blamed for marching in assuming that your lack of understanding was down to me being "unsettlingly" ignorant of mainstream science fiction, and treating it as a chance to make some sort of commentary on Tumblr's Effect On Our Youth.

A lot of ‘humans are weird’ posts play with the idea that humans are one of the few species that actually evolved as a predator and, as such, we are unusually strong and fast— but what if we’re not.

What if we’re tiny?

What if, to the majority of species in the galaxy, ten feet tall is unusually short— it basically only happens due to rare genetic conditions— and the average human is basically cat sized or smaller?

Instead of being terrified by our strength, the aliens’ most pressing concern is how exactly they’re going to communicate with us when we’re all the way down on the ground.

There are experiments, with aliens crouching low or humans standing on high platforms— but it usually ends up being either uncomfortable for the alien or dangerous for the human, or both, and just generally impractical for everyone.

But, while the diplomats and politicians are trying to figure out a dignified and simple solution, the ordinary people who actually have to work with the aliens have found one. Humans are, generally, pretty good climbers, and most species have conveniently places scales, feathers, fur or clothing that can act as a hand or foothold. Sure, some humans have a fear of heights, but those aren’t typically the ones going into space. Besides, climbing on a living alien often feels safer than climbing up a rock or something— at least you know you’ve got somebody to catch you.

Soon it becomes accepted that that’s the way humans travel with aliens— up high, easy to see and hard to tread on (there were quite a few… near misses, in the first few meetings between humans and aliens), balanced on somebody’s shoulder like the overgrown monkeys that we are.

Many humans see this as kind of an insult and absolutely refuse to go along with it, but they aren’t the ones who end up spending a lot of time with aliens— it’s just too inconvenient to talk to somebody all the way down on the ground. The ones that do best are the ones who just treat it like it’s normal, allowing themselves to be carried (at least, it’s ‘carrying’ when the aliens are within earshot. Among themselves, most humans jokingly refer to it as 'riding’), and passing on tips to their friends about the best ways to ride on different species without damaging feathers, or stepping on sensitive spots (or, in at least one case, ending up with a foot full of poisonous spines…).

The reason they don’t feel patronised by this is that they know, and they know that nearly everyone else in the galaxy knows, that humans are not just pets.

After all, you’d be surprised when a small size comes in handy.

Need somebody to look at the wiring in a small and fairly inaccessible area of the ship? Ask a human.

Need somebody to fix this fairly small and very detailed piece of machinery? Ask a human, they’re so small that their eyes naturally pick up smaller details.

Trapped under rubble and need somebody to crawl through a small gap and get help? Ask a human— most can wriggle through any gap that they can fit their head and shoulders through.

If you’re a friend, humans can be very useful. If, on the other hand, you’re an enemy…

Rumours spread all around the galaxy, of ships that threatened humans or human allies and started experiencing technical problems. Lights going off, wires being cut— in some cases, the cases where the threats were more than just words and humans or friends of humans were killed, life support lines have been severed, or airlocks have mysteriously malfunctioned and whole crews have been sucked out into space.

If the subject comes up, most humans will blame it on “gremlins” and exchange grim smiles when they’re other species friends aren’t looking.

By this point, most ships have a crew of humans, whether they like it or not. Lots of humans, young ones generally, the ones who want to see a bit of the universe but don’t have the money or connections to make it happen any other way, like to stowaway on ships. They’ll hang around the space ports, wait for a ship’s door to open and dart on in. The average human can have quite a nice time scurrying around in the walls of an alien ship, so long as they’re careful not to dislodge anything important.

Normally nobody notices them, and the ones that do tend not  to say anything— it’s generally recognised that having humans on your ship is good luck.

If there are humans on your ship, they say, then anything you lose will be found within a matter of days, sometimes even in your quarters; any minor task you leave out— some dishes that need to be cleaned, a report that needs to be spellchecked, some calculations that need to be done— will be quickly and quietly completed during the night; any small children on the ship, who are still young enough to start to cry in the night, will be soothed almost before their parents even wake, sometimes even by words in their own tongue, spoken clumsily through human vocal chords. If any of the human are engineers (and a lot of them are, and still more of them aren’t, but have picked up quite a few tricks on their travels from humans who are) then minor malfunctions will be fixed before you even notice them, and your ship is significantly less likely to experience any major problems.

The humans are eager to earn their keep, especially when the more grateful aliens start leaving out dishes of human-safe foods for them.

This, again, is considered good luck— especially since the aliens who aren’t kind to the humans often end up losing things, or waking up to find that their fur has been cut, or the report they spent hours on yesterday has mysteriously been deleted.

To human crew members, who work on alien ships out in the open, and have their names on the crew manifest and everything, these small groups of humans are colloquially referred to as 'ship’s rats’. There’s a sort of uneasy relationship between the two groups. On the one hand, the crew members regard the ship’s rats as spongers and potential nuisances— on the other hand, most human crew members started out as ship’s rats themselves, and now benefit from the respect (and more than a little awe) that the ship’s rats have made most aliens feel for humans. The general arrangement is that ship’s rats try to avoid ships with human crew members and, when they can’t, then they make sure to stay out of the crew members’ way, and the crew members who do see one make sure not to mention them to any alien crew members.

The aliens who know, on the other hand, have gotten into the habit of not calling them by name— mainly because they’re shaky as the legality of this arrangement, and don’t want to admit that anything’s going on. Instead they talk about “the little people” or “the ones in the walls” or, more vaguely, “Them”.

Their human friends— balancing on their shoulders, occasionally scurrying down and arm so as to get to a table, or jumping from one person’s shoulder to another, in order to better follow the conversation— laugh quietly to themselves when they hear this.

Back before the first first contact, lot of people on Earth thought that humans would become space orcs. Little did they know, they’d actually end up as space fae.

[captaingondolin]

Other fandoms/pairings I currently like/love/want to bond over, even though this is not a multifandom blog + more comprehensive fandom list + general fic likes/favourite tropes

Alexander/Hephaistion (14 years and counting as my absolute OTP, I met my best friend @fannyinfinity through writing terrible self-insert fic about them)

Nikolai Luzhin/Kirill from Eastern Promises. Probably my most obscure fandom, as my tastes are usually quite mainstream, but I love my murderous, horrible, criminal babies with all my heart.

Hamilton (I ship Whamilton like it’s nobody’s business, and it’s one of my few fandoms where I don’t multiship much. Also I SAW IT LIVE.)

Tolkien (as you might imagine from my name, the Silmarillion is my jam, although I also love LotR and I am in love with Aragorn. Ecthelion/Glorfindel is The OTP of my life, and in the remote case that a fellow shipper is reading, PLEASE come say hi, I desperately need shipping pals)

Greek mythology - I didn’t want to like The Song of Achilles because it has a very similar concept to a fic I started writing age 14 and never completed, and I didn’t like it. I fucking loved it. I also had a phase of shipping Apollo/Dionysus real hard for some reason.

Early Modern theatre - and YES, I watched TNT’s Will and liked it, no shame, and I also saw the stage version of Shakespeare in Love which was AMAZING and also hella gayer than the film. I ship Shakespeare and Marlowe with the force of a thousand burning suns and if you ship them too you are morally obligated to come talk to me, and also if you read the Promethean Series/Stratford Man by Elizabeth Bear because OH MAN

Currently screaming in pain as I wait for the next instalment of the Gentlemen Bastards series. Why do I love that little shit Lamora so much, why? And Jean. Jean is The Best.

Arthur/Lancelot from the 2004 King Arthur Movie. I kinda had a few months of obsession and now I have a book on arthurian mythology and a trip planned to Tintagel castle and lots of tears for these two dorks, but only in this very specific film? Honestly, self.

Kingsman. KINGSMAN. Harry/Eggsy. Obviously. LANCELOT STAN. She deserved better. To give you an idea of how much I like it: when it first appeared on Netflix, my housemates thought it was a series, because I could not stop watching it and they though I was marathoning it.

Used to be in the MCU (&some comics) fandom (now I am happy to see it around my dash, but I have lost the plot, mostly), where I multiship even more than usual. As this tweet says, I’m a Tony stan first and a human being second.

Band of Brothers (Winnix Winnix Winnix)

Jesus Christ Superstar (I find the lack of good Jesus/Judas content disturbing)

The History Boys (Scripps/Posner, Dakin/Irwin)

Hannibal (the comic sans edits are my favourite things)

Legally Blonde the Musical

Saint Seiya look, we won’t get into that, but it was the fandom I was most active and productive in, one of my first and still dearly beloved. I have a laundry list of ships, an enduring love for Aphrodite, and just... so many feelings.

[guardian-angle22]

Okay, I get the wanting more male + female friendships, but... The show has given us Owen and Tommy and Judd and Tommy and TK and Nancy, and we had Carlos and Michelle in season one, so please don't try to say that's a dynamic rarely seen, at least on 911 LS. I am so tired of people using this line, because Paul and Marjan have NOT been set up platonically, and I feel like the only reason people push the "let them stay friends" thing is because Paul is trans. Seriously, they check so many romance trope boxes that the resistance to it is getting kind of ridiculous.

Paul and Marjan getting together would be groundbreaking. There has never, ever been a trans man in a romance on a mainstream drama on a major network. So the fact that the show seems to be going there is important.

Paul already gets the short end of the stick when it comes to attention from this fandom. You have no idea how frustrating it is to see so many people bend over backwards to find reasons not to ship them.

When I said the dynamic is rarely seen, I definitely mean in media in general - not specifically 911ls... and what I mean in that regard is a friendship between two seemingly straight (I just say seemingly cause I guess we haven't had confirmation of Marjan's sexuality but she's straight-appearing right now), single people of different genders. I do enjoy those friendships you've mentioned but I feel like they aren't the same as what I'm referring to being rarely seen in media. I love the TK/Nancy friendship and the little we saw of Carlos/Michelle - but they're gay men. A romantic relationship would never be possible between them. The friendships involving Tommy are also great but she was established as being a family-oriented person in a loving marriage and that also makes a romance between her and Judd or Owen as not something that would be assumed to be a possibility.

That being said, I definitely get where you're coming from, and I'm not resistant to it at all. As I said, I think they would be fucking amazing together and I would love it if they did get together. Especially for what it would mean in the terms of representation.

but also... like I'm literally aromantic. So most of the time, I'm going to prefer friendships in general. It's just a personal thing to me that seeing really good friendships can be more rewarding to me to see at times.

I have fun shipping romantic relationships - I mean I love Tarlos and Grace/Judd and there are plenty of other romantic ships I follow out there in other fandoms. But as someone who doesn't ever truly feel those kinds of romantic feelings, I just connect more with friendships (and I wish there were more fandom related things like fics for just friendships). Which is my reasoning behind being "torn" on any kind of relationship like this in any show. So while I definitely don't speak for anyone else in the fandom, I hope that explains a little bit more about where I'm personally coming from?

As far as Paul getting the short end of the stick as far as attention, I agree! I literally taught myself to make gifs a month ago because I wanted to see more things in the fandom including Paul, Mateo, Marjan, and Tommy specifically... and I've been trying to do that and I'm going to keep trying! Because I love all of them and I think they deserve more focus.

[madlori]

The future of “Performance in a Leading Role”

So I have something to talk about with you guys, and I hope you’ll be excited about it. Confession: I am super nervous about doing this, and about announcing it.

After a long time, and a LOT of internal debate, I have decided to begin the process of editing “Performance in a Leading Role” into an original manuscript.

Many of you have urged me to do this in the past. I’ve been hesitant, and I wanted to be sure that I had completed all I wanted to do in the fannish incarnation of the story first. It’s been seven years since the story was first released (whoa), and I don’t plan to write any more fanfiction in the Sherlock fandom, so I think it’s time.

Another reason I was hesitant is that I’ve always been so honored and touched by the fandom response to this story. You’ve all taken it to your hearts in a way that I never anticipated, but which made the whole process of writing it a joy and one of the most rewarding writing experiences of my life. In a way, the story is as much the fandom’s as it is mine.

But that will never change (I hope). And in the end, it’s a piece of writing I’m proud of and I think I’d like the chance to share it with a wider audience, and hopefully use it to help me build my own writing career.

Initially, I had thought to offer it to the publisher who released “Zero at the Bone,” Dreamspinner Press, which is a fantastic gay romance publisher. But then my illustrious beta tzikeh said “You know, publishing has changed a lot since 2009. I think you could sell it to a mainstream publisher.” I consulted with another published-novelist friend who agreed, so...I am going to swing for the fences on this one.

So, you may have questions. Let me attempt to answer them.

Q: What does this mean for the story’s presence on AO3 and other fandom archives?

A: Honestly, I don’t know. Any change in its status is pretty far in the future (like, years, probably, if it changes at all). For now, nothing will happen. Everything will remain exactly where it is. If it were up to me, the fannish version would be able to remain posted (perhaps locked to registered AO3 users?). That might not be possible. I doubt it’ll be up to me. But if the story is removed from its current archives, you will have TONS of advance notice. And I will be generating a nicely-formatted PDF of the entire series plus all the extras, which will be available for free download.

In point of fact, you can do that anytime! Any work on AO3 can be downloaded in several formats, including pdf. There’s a “download” button in the upper right of every story. It’s always a good idea to save offline copies of your favorite fics, because stories come and go all the time. I’ve often been glad I saved so many BBM fanfics, as most of them are now unavailable.

Q: Will you need to get an agent for this?

A: Yes. If I’m going to shop Big Five publishers I need representation. That’ll be my first step - well, the first step is to complete an edit of the manuscript.

Q: What are you going to change when you edit?

A: Aside from the names, I’ll need to massage the Sherlock character to be less - shall we say, Sherlocky. Luckily being a frigid, difficult jerk isn’t unique to him. The John character will be American and bisexual from the start (not out publicly, but to himself and those close to him). The reason for that is I’m leery of the “gay for you” trope. I will likely downplay or eliminate the Moriarty character. He really never worked very well in the story and the only reason he’s even there at all was that readers sort of expected an appearance. “Sherlock” may still have an acting rival but it won’t be as ominous. I may make a few cuts or even additions to the story as I go along - there are a lot of things that could have used better build-up in previous chapters, but that’s the hazard of publishing serially. I won’t have that problem now, so I can make some changes to help the emotional arcs track better.

Q: What about the sequel and the extras? Will those be incorporated?

A: I don’t know! “Lifetime Achievement” isn’t quite long enough to be a bona fide sequel as it stands but it’s something to think about.

Q: Will you change all the real-people references to fake people?

A: Not right off the bat. I will make some changes needed by an updated timeline (Letterman isn’t on the air anymore, for example, and Alan Rickman has passed away). But it’s not illegal to reference real people in fictional works. It’s possible that if I can sell the manuscript an editor may want some changes, but for now I’m going to leave all those real-Holllywood references as they are.

Q: What about the sexytimes?

A: I may...tone that down a bit. But a lot of the sexy bits in the story do important character work, so I don’t anticipate cutting everything.

Q: Will you change the title?

A: I don’t plan to. I like it. I didn’t change the title of “Zero at the Bone” from its fannish incarnation.

Q: People will be able to figure out that it used to be fanfiction.

A: Probably. It won’t be the first (by a long shot). I’m not ashamed of the story’s origins.

Q: What about works based on it?

A: I don’t have jurisdiction over anyone who’s done fics inspired by or based off of the story. Where it gets uncertain for me is in the realm of translations and podfics. I don’t think it’s my place to ask someone who put in a great deal of work on a translation or a podfic to remove it. I don’t know the right answer to this. 

Q: Can we see the new version?

A: Okay, so. I will post general updates about my progress here on my Tumblr, but I am also going to be conducting a lot of the work of editing the manuscript using my Patreon as a workspace. I would love to share some of the process and get input on it from readers, but obviously I can’t do that work publicly. So if you’re interested, becoming a patron there is the way to go.

I have no guarantee that any publisher will want to buy it, of course. But hopefully, someday you’ll all be able to buy the new version!

But again, if you want in on the process and to see the edited material ahead of time, Patreon.

Okay. If there are more questions, please send me an Ask. I probably won’t begin serious work on this editing until I’ve at least finished my rewrite of “Flagstaff,” although I’ve taken a bit of a crack at chapter 1. This won’t be happening overnight, that’s for sure. 

I’m excited about the possibilities, and I hope you will be excited about them, too. 

[mindthewolves]

some thoughts, filed under: pacific rim

[this is gonna be full of spoilers. fair warning. but also curious what others thought of the storytelling in the movie.]

-the voiceover backstory was long and seemed like kind of a storytelling crutch. the thing is I don’t think the story needed to start where it did, with the onset of the kaiju attacks. it would’ve worked just as well to open at the height of the jaeger system, and cobble together the backstory from news footage (sans voiceover), the celebrity status of jaeger pilots (& specifically I would have loved for this to focus on POC pilots as an inversion of the directionality of media consumption today, which largely faces toward US/western media), and raleigh’s pov. it took quite a while for pacific rim to find its footing in terms of characterization, and introducing raleigh and his brother in this way - focusing on more of their daily routine and the sibling dynamic - could have helped the story gel sooner and heightened the emotional impact of yancy’s death.

-but one possible reason this wasn’t done is because drift compatibility and the entire premise of the jaegers is difficult to show without a narrative voiceover. potential workarounds: retrospective news footage of how the jaegers were conceived, engineered, and troubleshooted; or (and more interesting to me) a scene involving pilots who weren’t drift compatible. this is something pac rim never got to show, and given that compatibility is seen as rare and special, I’m curious what incompatibility looks like – bigotry, possibly, given the overarching theme of unity tying the film together. and assuming people are fluid & have the capacity for change, is it possible to fall in and out of drift compatibility, i.e. if the pilots discover something about each other, if the relationship becomes rocky, etc.?

-been thinking about ways the neural drift could be portrayed other than wandering through each other’s childhood memories, and I think sense8 does it more effectively in terms of how it overlaps narratives and shared experiences. in your eyes is another movie that plays with a similar telepathic bond in a very effective way. 

-it’s a movie made for the big screen visual; there’s so much detail to the kaiju and a lot of thought has gone into the monster anatomy, their evolving modes of attack, etc.

-so much so that there are more kaiju than speaking role women in this movie, more kaiju than speaking role POCs, and (subjectively; tbh I haven’t tabulated) the kaiju get more screen time than the female or POC characters. I’m also not sure why the kaiju are all nicknamed. like if you are hunting and tracking a group of things for a length of time, I understand; but for an enemy that appears singly and is dealt with immediately? why would you name it? (also the naming choice for the main jaeger...just no.)

-ok the racial politics first. I loved stacker’s portrayal, how his authority and the burden of command flows from him as easily as breathing. it’s never questioned. even when raleigh disagrees, he presses up to a point, but ultimately defers. & stacker is three-dimensional in a way that sidesteps tropes of black men in authority positions being angry or intimidating, or being sidelined or killed off for the advancement of a white character’s narrative: he has the people he wants to protect, he's willing to make the hard choices but is set up as the moral center of the story, and he has the weight of his own history behind him. the fact that he’s ostensibly drift compatible with anyone speaks to a remarkable capacity for empathy and understanding. ofc it’s found family that always gets me though, and the scene where mako very subtly gestures to herself to alert him to a nosebleed says volumes about their relationships, about the secrets she keeps for him, and the vulnerability he lets her see.

-mako on the other hand does fall into a number of racial stereotypes: all asians know martial arts, all asian women are demure and defer to authority. from a purely storytelling perspective, she makes for a good foil to raleigh’s more impulsive character, and they’re evenly matched. but when you take into account the larger pattern of racial stereotypes in mainstream media, this particular characterization irks me to no end (see: sense8, street fighter - legend of chun li) and this trope needs to die. also it irritated me that she had so little agency; she doesn’t fight (much) for herself to become a jaeger pilot, she stands back as raleigh decks chuck on her behalf, and later she’s ejected from the jaeger when raleigh decides it’s time to go it alone. she doesn’t make a ton of choices in this story. from a gender standpoint though, I definitely appreciated the restraint in terms of not sexualizing her as a character – the jaeger uniform she wears is the same as raleigh’s, she’s not shown in various states of undress, and the romantic subplot I was sure was going to rear its head just...didn’t? kudos.

-for a story set in hong kong, there are a bunch of white people. just sayin’. and sure the apocalypse could conceivably be postracial, but that’s not what’s happening here. the asian actors are background, and it’s most notable in the scenes with newt in the bunker – he’s always centered, and the camera singles him out while everyone else is just noise. the other jaeger candidates are indistinguishable from one another and unnecessarily, poorly matched against raleigh. mako is the only asian actor with more than a token line (and is, notably, japanese rather than chinese). non sequitur but it’s also not apparent to me why raleigh magically speaks japanese, or why it’s even necessary to include that detail in their meet cute. stacker speaking japanese I can buy, given their father-daughter dynamic, but raleigh doing the same sets off red flags for me.

-as a disclaimer I tend not to like action scenes for their own sake (avengers & batman v superman, boring; wonder woman: riveting, because the emotional stakes were palpable) but these definitely felt too long because the characters and stakes weren’t sufficiently fleshed out and there was so much attention paid to the kaiju when they were fairly monotone villains.

-like there was so much characterization that could have been capitalized on here, which is why I think pac rim has such fic potential: lots of space to fill in the blanks. and that’s not a bad thing, to leave those gaps. but at the same time I think the emotional beats of the movie hit late, and maybe they could have been played up more.

-for one I didn’t realize the striker eureka pilots were father and son until they were saying their goodbyes on opposite sides of an elevator door (see there are these great moments) and therefore when stacker sizes up the son, his mention of daddy issues seemed heavy-handed and not borne out in the previous narrative. idk maybe I missed something earlier on, entirely possible. I completely missed how the dog was a surrogate for the father-son affection until the elevator scene.

-second, the jaeger pilots just kept dying in droves towards the end of the movie but for a group of people with a skill set so rare and so valued? I wanted their deaths to be played up more. I wanted a funeral or at least a tribute to the wei triplets and the kaidanovskys, possibly also dredging up the jaeger carcasses from the sea. it didn’t have to be elaborate, but it would have made sense to take a moment. (it’s been a while since I watched battlestar galactica, but something that has always stuck with me – however vaguely – was the way the raider pilots would touch the memorial wall as they filed past, the sheer emotional weight that went into those few frames.)

-but geez the shoe motif. it was a neat metaphor for the theme of togetherness lacing through the movie, as well as for the concept of drift compatibility. & I liked how the two pairs of shoes contrasted each other. stacker gives mako (what I assume to be) the second shoe, making a complete pair, and it’s a little kid’s shoe that embodies unity and family and an innocence of heart. but when hannibal gets eaten, the gold-plated Shoes of Avarice TM are separated.

-the questionable science: the striker eureka is purely electric, and goes out of commission when an EMP hits, whereas the mark-3 jaegers run on nuclear energy AND YET power off when the plug is pulled? but wait it gets better. stacker’s been warned that he’ll die from radiation poisoning if he steps foot in another jaeger, and the emotional beat when he takes herc’s spot plays off his knowing sacrifice. not sure what he thinks he’ll die from though, because he’s stepping into a solely electric-powered jaeger.

-nitpick: why is there so much shouting in the jaegers. why the need to talk if you’re in each other heads.

-also from a safety design standpoint it seems like a terrible idea to have the pilots standing, with zero support in case of impact.

-also if the kaiju are so invincible and any non-jaeger weaponry doesn’t make a dent, someone explain to me how in the stinger, hannibal cuts his way out of a kaiju GI tract with a tiny tiny knife.

-soundtrack: it always feels like I have no vocabulary to describe art or music, but I liked how the electronic/percussive elements echo the construction material of the mechas onscreen, kind of like an onomatopoeia. the orchestral undercurrent carries the heroic tone of the movie, but it’s stained too with foreboding by the foghorn blasts. & the beat idk but it reminded me of the give-and-take choreography of a fight or of a dance, possibly also the synchrony between jaeger pilots.

-way better meta about the symbolism in the changing colors of jaeger pilot armor here:

Raleigh goes from a white uniform to a black one, which is a classic Manichean Heresy. One could argue that the switch symbolizes a loss of innocence, but I would say that it goes much deeper than that (though I would also argue that this is treated by the film as a positive thing – Raleigh trades innocence for wisdom in this equation). A Manichean Heresy is an inversion of traditional symbolism. In his white uniform, which would traditionally symbolize purity and righteousness, Raleigh and Yancy make a mistake that ends in his Yancy’s death, the near destruction of G*psy Danger, and Raleigh’s fall from grace. When he returns to the world, as a savior and mentor, he wears a black uniform.

When I realized this, it took me a while to figure out what it meant. It wasn’t until I considered Stacker Pentecost’s uniform that I understood. Stacker shifts from a dark silver uniform into a black one. This transition is less extreme than Raleigh’s, though I think in a lot of ways they mirror one another. It is never stated that Stacker or his partner made a mistake that led to his partner’s death, therefore it makes sense that Raleigh and Stacker would be represented in visually unique manners, since their narratives have different trajectories. Thus Stacker’s transition into the black uniform is likely representative of his gained experience (and his eventual – spoiler alert – martyrdom), because he was presented to us (in literal messianic imagery) as a fixed moral point even from his introduction.