#fun bonus game try to guess my favorite ships based off of which songs i picked for them

[gwendolynnderolo]

shadowhunters ships as taylor swift songs

the saga of unhinged shadowhunters chronicles posts continues! once again this post is absurdly long so i'm putting it under a cut. let me know your thoughts/other songs that remind you of particular ships cause i'm always down to talk about that!

clace: state of grace 

we fall in love 'til it hurts or bleeds, or fades in time

and i never saw you coming, and i’ll never be the same 

so you were never a saint, and I've loved in shades of wrong, we learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts

malec: lover 

and there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear, have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

can I go where you go? can we always be this close forever and ever?

my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue, all's well that ends well to end up with you

sizzy: wildest dreams 

say you'll remember me, standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe, red lips and rosy cheeks, say you'll see me again, even if it's just in your wildest dreams

someday when you leave me, i bet these memories follow you around

say you'll see me again, even if it's just pretend

wessa: peace 

but I'm a fire, and I'll keep your brittle heart warm, if your cascade ocean wave blues come, all these people think love's for show, but I would die for you in secret

and you know that I'd swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches, give you my wild, give you a child, give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other

i'd give you my sunshine, give you my best, but the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me

jessa: invisible string 

and isn't it just so pretty to think all along there was some invisible string tying you to me?

something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire, chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons, one single thread of gold tied me to you

hell was the journey but it brought me heaven

blackstairs: cruel summer 

devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes, what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

said, "I'm fine," but it wasn't true, i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

and I screamed “for whatever it's worth, I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?”

kit x ty: death by a thousand cuts 

saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, flashbacks waking me up

i look through the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up, chandelier's still flickering here, cause i can't pretend it's ok when it's not

i take the long way home, i ask the traffic lights if it'll be all right, they say, "i don't know"

and what once was ours is no one's now, i see you everywhere, the only thing we share is this small town

my heart, my hips, my body, my love, trying to find a part of me that you didn't touch

quiet my fears with the touch of your hand, paper cut stings from our paper thin plans

gave you too much but it wasn't enough, but i'll be all right, it's just a thousand cuts

kierarktina: dancing with our hands tied 

my love had been frozen, deep blue, but you painted me golden

and darling, you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis, people started talking, putting us through our paces, i knew there was no one in the world who could take it

i loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us, so, baby, can we dance, oh, through an avalanche?

i'd kiss you as the lights went out, swaying as the room burned down, i'd hold you as the water rushes in, if i could dance with you again

jordelia: cardigan 

when you are young, they assume you know nothing

and when i felt like i was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on and said i was your favorite

a friend to all is a friend to none, chase two girls, lose the one

you drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleeding 

cause I knew you, stepping on the last train, marked me like a bloodstain

but i knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss, i knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs, the smell of smoke would hang around this long, cause i knew everything when i was young

thomastair: treacherous 

and i'll do anything you say, if you say it with your hands

and i'd be smart to walk away, but you're quicksand

your name has echoed through my mind, and i just think you should, think you should know, that nothing safe is worth the drive, and i would follow you, follow you home

ghostwriter: enchanted 

your eyes whispered, "have we met?" 'cross the room your silhouette, starts to make its way to me

i'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home, i'll spend forever wondering if you knew, i was enchanted to meet you

this is me praying that this was the very first page, not where the story line ends

arianna: august 

whispers of "are you sure?" "never have I ever before"

but i can see us lost in the memory, august slipped away into a moment in time, cause it was never mine, and i can see us twisted in bedsheets, august sipped away like a bottle of wine, cause you were never mine

back when we were still changing for the better, wanting was enough, for me, it was enough to live for the hope of it all

so much for summer love and saying "us" cause you weren't mine to lose

charles/alastair: the story of us 

i used to know my place was the spot next to you, now i’m searching the room for an empty seat, cause lately i don't even know what page you're on

so many things that i wish you knew, so many walls up i can't break through

now i’m standing alone in a crowded room and we're not speaking, and i’m dying to know is it killing you like it's killing me, yeah?

james/grace: my tears ricochet 

even on my worst day, did i deserve, babe, all the hell you gave me? cause i loved you, i swear i loved you, ’til my dying day

and i can go anywhere I want, anywhere i want, just not home

you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same, cursing my name, wishing i stayed, you turned into your worst fears

fairstairs: run 

give me the keys, i’ll bring the car back around, we shouldn't be in this town, and my so-called friends, they don't know, i’d drive away before i let you go, so give me a reason and don't say no

and run, like you'd run from the law, darling, let's run, run from it all, we can go where our eyes can take us, go where no one else is

[johannas-motivational-insults]

Jo’s Top 10 of 2020

I see lots of artists doing that thing where they post a piece from each month of the year... unfortunately my content creation isn’t necessarily consistent and it’s hard to track what month individual fic chapters were posted in, but I figured I’d do something similar and post my Top 10 pieces of content I created in 2020, what they’re about and why I love them. I actually did get a fair amount done this year thanks to the lockdown, but I’ve narrowed it down to these ten that I’d like to reflect on. (To be fair, I’m probably forgetting something huge. Feel free to leave comments if you think I passed over something important lol.)

10. Friendship in the Horde (meta): This is something I’d wanted to write for a while but finally got around to finishing in February. It’s basically a sociology paper lmao, an analysis of the social hierarchies and systems of the Horde. It was also a convenient excuse for me to gush about Catralonnie, an underrated (friend)ship. But honestly this was an important piece for me because I have always identified with the Horde characters way more than any of the rebels (other than Adora, who grew up in the Horde) and part of why is how they are in an unsafe environment and end up forming relationships that are helpful for survival but hinder them psychologically. And I think to understand the Horde characters and really evaluate their motives and choices you need to understand this first.

9. The Sting in My Eyes: On the surface this is just a run of the mill hurt/comfort oneshot, but it was a really important post-canon processing fic for me. I had a lot of feelings about Catra’s relationships with Shadow Weaver and Melog in season 5, particularly about how Catra must have felt really conflicted after Shadow Weaver told her what she wanted to hear all those years but in a way that felt unearned and out of the blue. It was really cathartic for me to write a scene where she struggles with those mixed feelings but has Adora and Melog to help her process them. And I had long associated the song the title is from with Catra and Shadow Weaver’s relationship, and the way she died trying to redeem herself really solidified that connection.

8. Hail Mary, chapter 6: This was supposed to be a short chapter mostly about the backstory between Catra and Scorpia in this au, with some Catradora yearning thrown in. It evolved into a massive, sprawling thing that is very atmospheric in terms of how the setting and vibes are described and how in the moment it feels. Hail Mary is like that sometimes but that type of narration is usually about football games rather than parties, so this chapter was a fun change of pace in many ways. It was really nostaglic for me to write too, the nerves of being a teenager at a party with your crush and how intense everything feels. And the Scorptra stuff really is delicious, it was nice seeing them have that conversation they never got to have in canon and truly make up, and the tiny sliver I added of Catra’s earlier history was heartbreaking in the best way. So this was not what I intended to write, but it turned out way better for it.

7. A Better Son or Daughter (AMV): I’ve done other Adora AMVs, but this one is really my iconic piece. The song is perfect for Adora, so perfect it’s on Noelle’s Adora playlist. The vid itself is a character study about Adora’s mental health struggles and the way she represses them, as well as a tribute to her resiliency and her eventual triumph of getting to a better place in her life. This is a song that gives me a lot of feelings and once I was making it about Adora it gave me even more, so this was a very satisfying piece to complete. I wish Noelle had gotten a chance to see it but oh well, maybe down the line.

6. Hail Mary, chapter 12: This is the chapter that much of the fic had been building to, Catra and Adora in conflict because Catra finally got the chance to be Adora’s hero and Adora shot her down. It’s painfully analogous to canon, both in terms of how (I suspect) Catra felt in Thaymor and Adora’s tendency to victim blame because she’s so pragmatic. There’s definitely some tones of Taking Control in there but Lonnie does a much better job of examining Catra’s psychology and needs than Glimmer did in canon (a writing error imo, Glimmer should have had more insight). Adora just wants to help but sometimes in her quest to do so she disenfranchises others, and this was a much needed look at that aspect of her character. It’s also an excellent illustration of what it’s like to play a peacekeeping role in an abusive household and how stressful it is trying to protect others while also protecting yourself.

5. Unstoppable (AMV): This is not my favorite Catra AMV I’ve ever done, but it might be the cleverest. The soundtrack is a song about mental illness masquerading as a song about being a bad bitch, which is basically Catra in a nutshell. The lyrics are incredibly fitting for her and her arc as it develops over seasons 1-4. The vid itself takes a hard turn in the interpretation of the lyrics, going from talking about how no one can stop Catra to how she can’t stop herself because she’s in such a terrible sunk cost fallacy spiral, and I think I got several death threats over that twist lmao. As someone who primarily deals in angst, there’s hardly a better compliment to be paid.

4. Demons, chapter 31: This one got real dark on me. The concept of this chapter was originally an examination of how comparing abuse can get really dicey but you also have to respect that other people have had different experiences from you and you have to be careful not to equate things or make it sound like you’re talking over someone else. I guess it’s also a bit of a look at how autistic people (like myself) will often explain why they can empathize so others know they understand rather than saying empty platitudes, but that can come off as insensitive or like they’re making things about them. I mean, in this case Adora kinda was making things about her, but she was provoked into it by a parade of comments insinuating she didn’t suffer at all, which was also unfair. Anyway it’s one of the more important Catradora fights in Demons and something I’d written bits of over a year prior, it was that important to the plot, but it also took a turn I was not originally planning. I finished the chapter when I was in a really bad depressive and self-loathing spiral and that bled onto the page, but it worked perfectly for Catra in this scenario... that push and pull of feeling like the world has hurt and victimized you mixed with knowing you’ve done some bad things yourself and feeling like you don’t have a leg to stand on when mourning the ways you’ve been hurt. It’s intense as all fuck but it’s excellent.

3. Hail Mary, chapter 11: Speaking of dark Catra content, this chapter... whew. It was really something else, to read and to write. I have written flashbacks in Demons that are more detailed and even include explicit violence but because those scenes are always in flashback form I never really got the chance to sit in the head of an abuse victim waiting for the other shoe to drop for an entire chapter like I did here. It’s quite different from the rest of Hail Mary stylistically and is both highly sensory and extremely internalized. It took me back to some terrifying moments in my own life so it was difficult but also extremely cathartic to write. It’s important too because it really sets up where Catra was at mentally heading into her big fight with Adora, and that chapter is in Adora POV. This chapter is ranked so high simply because it’s... polished, as @malachi-walker put it. It almost is its own story within the story and really noteworthy as a piece all its own.

2. Demons, chapter 26: This chapter is very similar thematically to Hail Mary 12, just based in the canonverse. It deals with one of the core (but highly neglected by fandom) conflicts between Catra and Adora, where they both need to feel like they can take care of and protect the other but also detest feeling weak or vulnerable themselves. It leads to Adora’s ego making Catra feel disrespected and Catra’s behavior confusing Adora and making her think she’s an ungrateful brat rather than someone who needs so badly to be needed, just like her. There’s definitely some power struggles in this chapter but finally they’re able to get to the heart of it and seeing them talk it out is so satisfying. Getting this chapter published was also important to me on a personal level because, like I said, this aspect of their conflict and relationship is rarely acknowleged for how important it is when really it’s one of the deepest conflicts between them in the series. It’s a scene I started writing pretty much as soon I knew I was extending the fic into something longer because I just needed them to have this conversation, so finishing it was so satisfying.

1. Satisfaction, chapter 3: This chapter took me a really long time to write, both in terms of time to get it published and time I actually spent working on it. It’s the crown jewel of a fic that’s really important to me and I had to get it just right, so I spent more time agonizing over every detail and rewriting things to get them absolutely perfect than I usually do (I’m a perfectionist anyway, but this took it to a whole other level). But in the end it was worth it, because this chapter is damn fine. It’s really hot, as you’d expect from a smut fic, but it’s also an excellent character study of how both Catra and Adora were affected by their abuse and trauma and the issues it raises for them in terms of sex and intimacy. Also, come on, we need more BDSM fics out there that focus on the actual point of it all (the trust involved) and promote communication and do the character work to explain why they might be into it in the first place.

BONUS (from December 31, 2019): One of my favorite pieces of 2020 technically came out in 2019, but I posted it on New Years Eve so most people first saw it in 2020. It’s an absolute banger of an AMV called I’m Not Jesus that’s all about Catra and Adora’s anger towards Shadow Weaver and their refusal to forgive their abuser. Funny enough this came out before Adora’s iconic “I will never forgive you” line, and Shadow Weaver definitely made things more complicated with how she went out, but I think the sentiment still applies.