#i hope this gifset does it justice

[kruxton]

moment of shame #2

please i cant get enough of sanji's waist its embarassing at this point

[jellyfishjuliet]

March 3rd - 9th, 2025

Monday, March 3rd - Kryptonian Folklore // Malevolent God

Tuesday, March 4th - Metropolis in the Dark // Truth & Justice

Wednesday, March 5th - Earth 3 // Replaced

Thursday, March 6th - Nonconsensual Body Modification // Mistaken Identity

Friday, March 7th - Elseworld // The Phantom Zone

Saturday, March 8th - Mothers & Fathers // Sons & Daughters

Sunday, March 9th - Sacrifice // Liberation

Hi everyone! Happy to announce that there will be a second run of Superfam Horror Week. Last year, we had 10+ unique fanworks prepared for the fanevent. We hope to see y'all again in March for another round of spooky, Superfam goodness!! ( •̀ .̫ •́ )✧

Some housekeeping items hehe

Purpose?

More horror-themed fanworks for the Soupeyfam! Please note that Horror is a VERY BIG GENRE with multiple subgenres that can also crossover with other big genres! All this to say, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO INCORPORATE ROMANCE, COMEDY, ETC. TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT!!! Just make sure it also scares the shit outta people :'> Happy endings (and beginnings) are also welcome!

Why should we participate in this?

Because you want to read and see fanworks that are not entirely approved by the Comics Code Authority. This event encourages NSFW fanworks and exploration of Superfam characters' worst, most awful days.

So how does it work?

The release date for fanworks is from Monday, the 3rd of March through Sunday, the 9th of March, 2025. You have three months to prepare your fanworks! :3

This an opportunity for people who’d like to explore the Superfamily characters, dynamics, and relationships through a variety of prompts. Romantic ships are allowed, as well as dynamics with a sexual element that are not necessarily romantic, provided that the Superfam are the focus of your work.

Superfamily characters include, but are not limited to:

Clark Kent

Lois Lane

Kara Zor El

Jonathan and Martha Kent

Jon Kent

Osul Ra and Otho Ra

John Henry Irons

Natasha Irons

Kon El/Conner Kent

Chris Kent/Lor Zod

Karen Starr

Kong Kenan

Mon El

Superfamily characters of ANY comic book universe are acceptable. This includes Elseword variants, multiversal variants, and Superboy-Prime. If you want to spend the entire fanweek exploring Ultraman and Injustice!Superman because you love drama, then be my guest! If you want Ultraman to finally kidnap Lois, go for it!! Let that imagination run WILD!!!

What can I create?

Any and all content warnings are allowed, just make sure that you post any Mature content on a landing page that doesn't restrict Mature content (like AO3). I don’t want anyone getting their blog banned. We cannot defeat our capitalist overlords, but we can definitely work around them.

This fanweek will not have a dedicated blog because I am lazy. These prompts are free for anyone to use. Because it is a non-traditional, non-monetized, and free-to-opt-in casual event, there will be no mods but moi, no advertising of paid services, and no ratings or participant restrictions. I will open a collection on AO3 in March for anyone who wants their work collated for this event.

In order to ensure that both creators and the audience are making informed decisions about what they engage with, all creators are encouraged to include triggers, ships, and any other squick warnings. 

Fanart (standalones, comic strips, etc.), fanfiction (one-shots, multichapter, etc.), fanmixes, gifsets, graphics, meme collections, and fanvids are all allowed! Go wild!!!

Please utilize the read-more function for fanworks that are longer than 250 words. We're tryna read yer stories, not get spammed with a wall of text. Please Be Courteous.

And last but not least - if you are engaging with any of the fanworks, reblog, reblog, reblog! Share the work with your followers. Send all the love to the creators for crafting their masterpieces!!

What does (X) prompt mean?

Each day has two prompts!! You can either pick a prompt OR you can combine prompts in different ways. Let your imagination take you where you want to go with each prompt!! If you want to explore both in the same fanwork, then be my guest!! Creativity is key! Have fun!!!

Can I crackship/multiship/harem/OT3/polyam/rape the characters?

Absolutely!!! Just please remember that this is the Soupeyfam horror week, not the Batfam horror week. We love ships and non-ships alike, but this week is about the Superfamily being put in horrific situations, not a way for you to stealthily write your big name ships for a whole week. That's for a shipweek, which this is not.

Does this have a tag?

During release week, use the general “superfam” or "superfamily" tags to share your work with the wider Superfam fandom on tunglr. You can use whatever other tags you fancy. The best way to share, however, is to directly @ me so that I may reblog it. Please also share your AO3 links via DM so that I may include it in the collection on AO3.

I didn’t read a damn thing before this, Ava.

TL;DR: Three months until the fanweek!!! Now’s the time to start thinking about what prompts you want to utilize for your creations. There are no creative restrictions, but I do ask that you follow these posting tips:

All fanfiction should be under a read-more.  

NSFW fanwork should be LINKED to whatever landing site the content is being hosted on (Twitter, AO3, Bluesky). This includes both fanfiction and fanart. I don’t want your blog getting flagged bc tunglr hates gay people.

Provide content warnings for all triggers, squicks, and sub-genres.  If you feel uncomfortable sharing directly on your blog, you can post to AO3 anonymously and send me your link via DM to add to the collection on AO3.

You can participate as much as you want!! Maybe you only wanna create for one day? Cool! Maybe you’re an overachieving corporate clown like myself, and wanna create for every day of the week? Go for it!!! 

The most important thing is to have fun :)

If you enjoy deliciously dark fiction featuring our favorite DC clan, please come join us (me and my cat)! I would love to read your 10k character study of Jon's recent body modification and Kara's trip in space with a World Destroyer.

We’re three months away from release week, so take your time, look through the prompts, and get your creative juices flowing! I will be sending out reminders until the go-live date.

If you come across any Puriteens, censorship specialists, and crybabies who don't like anything that's not Rated G, please block as you go. Fandom is still in dire straits with puritanical behavior in every sub-pocket of comics fandom, so please block, block, and block some more! If a fancop gets on your ass, just link them to will.i.am & Britney Spears' MIND YOUR BUSINESS.

For the sixty-three people who showed interest during the initial interest check, I hope you're able to participate. To the ten people who hate me, your mom's a hoe. Thank you.

[meetonalphacentauri]

Another Culmets gifset. Every kiss so far. Fingers crossed for more after episode 9 (I haven't watched it yet) and 10. I'm going to miss Disco so much.

I tried to do something a bit fancier but it's not nearly as smooth and slick as I'd envisioned. I realize that I'm going to have to learn photoshop or preferably gimp but this is what it's going to look like for now. I hope it's not too annoying and it does some justice to my space darlings.

[esmes]

don't mind me - just some rainy day musings bc sweeney todd 2023 has rotted my brain

someone's tags on a gifset got me thinking about 2023 revival lovett and todd and the special something their dynamic has. there's something about this particular iteration of these characters and their relationship, especially as we see it evolve throughout the show (even as we've seen it evolve throughout the show's run), that just makes mrs lovett's betrayal and her death at his hands hit hard. i know, i know - she deserves it. she lies! she's a lying liar. her deceit is no small thing. any one of us would be incensed to have been misled the way she misleads sweeney. even if a small part of her may have done it, as she says, to spare him having to see what became of his lucy, the larger part was certainly to serve her own interests.

but there's something about how close mrs lovett gets to bringing sweeney around to her this time that just gets me carried away. they're not just business partners - they're lovers, they're co-conspirators, and they're sort of each other's only friend in the world. at this point, he indulges her flights of fancy. they know each other intimately. they joke with each other! he's likely had to listen to countless hours of her prattling on about her thoughts, hopes, and wishes. this is a man who, at this point in the show, is slitting people's throats without remorse. and yet he spends the evening on the sofa cleaning his pipe while he patiently listens to his girlfriend rave about a seaside wedding. when she takes his hand, he doesn't wrench himself from her grasp like he used to. he doesn't get up and walk out, which he could do. he accepts her - her presence, her company, her warmth. he may struggle to admit it to himself, but he does. he can concede that he loves her - just a little bit, though he can't quite bring himself to say the words. sweeney is fiercely loyal to lucy's memory, so much so that he clearly couldn't ever wholly give his heart to someone else, but, in that moment after "by the sea", you can see that he's softened toward lovett. they were both alone a long time before this, after all.

it's not the stuff of great love songs, but it's something. it's almost enough.

this is what ultimately makes the final living moments between them all the more heartbreaking. mrs lovett has always been a sympathetic character to me - a villain, sure, but not without her reasons. she's a woman alone in a brutal world. whether the character is an older or a younger iteration, she's been alone for a desperately long time. when sweeney returns to her after all this time, she sees her moment and she takes it. she's not letting her second chance at life get away from her without a few claw marks.

when sweeney kills her, he sheds no tears over it - but the grudging fondness we'd seen him beginning to feel toward her only serves to emphasize how monstrous of a deception it is. his "you LIED to me" comes out in an anguished roar. when he throws her in that oven, all the light goes out from the world. it takes my breath away every time. though it should, it doesn’t quite feel like justice.

i know not everyone loves annaleigh's interpretation, but i have maintained from the first time i saw this revival that the warmth she brings, the honeyed, deluded, comical sweetness that lures sweeney into believing life with her could be tolerable, if not ideal, was a brilliant choice.

that's why the leap into hell together works for me. some productions have had sweeneys that barely tolerate their lovetts, so a cold diverging of paths makes sense. these two definitely fall into a different category. it makes sense to me for this sweeney and lovett's ultimate fate to be each other. who else would it be? lucy did nothing wrong - she's not going where he's going. having made lovett pay for her lies, they can head on down (hand in unlovable hand!!!!!!!) to live out the almost-enough life they created with each other. and sure, her chirping his ear off for eternity would certainly make an appropriate punishment for his crimes.

[pricemarshfield]

wrote a little fic for @gwynbleidd since they made the loveliest lae'zel gifset for me! so here's a little thing for alistair and your surana. i hope i did her justice <3

The first time Neria fights at the front rather than casting from the back nearly gives Alistair a heart attack.

It’s a little embarrassing. He can’t recall the same blood-curdling terror in any of their other recent fights, even when Morrigan decided to reveal she could shapeshift by turning into a giant, monstrous spider and spitting poison at the darkspawn Alistair had locked swords with, the stench of the thing almost enough to make him miss the weird chittering that he’s certain was her laughing. Sure, that had freaked him out, and it’s an experience he would prefer not to repeat, but it was more an irritation than anything.

When Neria had taken the phylactery and freed the spirit, Alistair had smiled at her. It wasn’t a surprise, exactly, she’s been kind to everyone deserving of it they’ve come across, along with quite a few that weren’t. When she’d been suddenly much more comfortable moving in armor, Alistair had been proud, a little reassured that she’d be alright even if someone managed to slip past him to take out the mage keeping them all up. When she’d started wielding a sword, Alistair couldn’t remember feeling much of anything other than his cheeks being so warm even Shale had noticed.

Somehow, he hadn’t connected that to her joining him at the front, leaving Leliana and Zevran to slip through the weak spots in their enemies' forces and attack them from the back. It’s not that she does badly, or anything. Sure, her fighting style’s a lot less “polished” than his, but she manages to take out a few of the bandits who’d somehow taken their motley crew for easy targets, still managing to spare a quick healing spell for Leliana when one of them smacks her with a shield.

All-in-all, the fight takes maybe two, three minutes, and Leliana’s injury is the worst of it. Still, Alistair’s hands are shaking. He can’t stop replaying the image of the one bandit clearly taking her for the easier target and lunging forward, quick enough that Alistair wouldn’t have been able to stop them, only for the blade to get caught on her armor and for Neria to smack him with the hilt of the sword hard enough for the man to crumble to the ground in an undignified heap.

Neria looks a little shaken, too. “Is everyone alright?”

Leliana smiles at them, already retrieving what arrows she can from the bandits. Zevran, ever-showy, spreads his arms and says, “More than! You would think they would run away once they realize they are hopelessly outmatched by us, no?”

Neria smiles back, just a small one, and says, “Alistair? What about you?”

“I’m fine,” he says, though it comes out all wrong, too shaky and wholly unconvincing. “Didn’t get hit or anything.” He holds up his shield and waves it a bit. “You?”

“Fine,” Neria says, just as quickly. “Still, we should make camp soon. We’re a long way from Denerim yet.”

So they do, the process quick after this many nights travelling with each other. As always, Morrigan’s off in the corner doing her best to ignore them all, Zevran's needling Wynne to see if he can get a reaction from her, and Leliana's half-singing, half-humming Orlesian songs as she works. He can’t see Neria anywhere, though.

Alistair walks a little away from the fire, the noise of camp fading a bit to the noises of the forest. He finds her there, lying back on a little hill facing away from camp, looking up at the stars with an expression he can’t quite read on her face.

He feels like he’s intruding, suddenly, but she turns to him before he can leave and smiles at him. “You can stay. I don’t mind.” She shifts so there’s room to lie next to her.

He does. They don’t talk for a bit, just looking up at the stars. He used to do this, back when he was first made a Warden and shaken by how much freedom he had at last, or even before, when he was still in Redcliffe and spent more time with the dogs than with any actual person. It’s peaceful, and he feels a little of the tension from the battle before finally bleed out of his shoulders.

Maker, he’s exhausted.

But Neria’s been a good friend to him--more than, if he’s being honest--and deserves more from him than just falling asleep here, so he says, “So, uh. You sure you’re okay?”

He expects her to say she’s okay and have to joke his way to them talking about it, but she just sighs and says, “Well. Mostly.”

“That’s something, at least!” Alistair says, trying for his usual cheer.

Neria huffs out a laugh before going quiet again. Alistair doesn’t push; this silence feels more companionable than stifling. Sure enough, a minute or so later and she says, “I was worried you’d get hurt. Earlier.”

“Oh,” Alistair says, because that hadn’t been what he was expecting at all. “Uh. I didn’t.”

“No, I know,” Neria says, turning to look at him. “I just don’t ever want to see you hurt.” Her face goes a little pink. “Or, you know. Any of us getting hurt. I want to keep everyone safe.” There’s a moment of silence; Alistair catches himself holding his breath, not quite sure why. “I want to keep you safe.”

“That’s supposed to be my job,” Alistair says, voice a little croaky.

She elbows him. “Hey, don’t pretend I didn’t do well today.”

“You did,” Alistair says. “It, uh, wasn’t the easiest for me, to see you at the front. But you--I mean, you clearly learned a lot from that spirit.”

“And from you,” she says, like it’s nothing.

“Right.” He should give her the rose. He’d been thinking of her when he picked it, weeks back now, but the urge to is almost overwhelming, suddenly. 

“Anyway,” Neria says, after what could be only a moment or hours, for all Alistair’s paying attention. “We should probably get back to camp before the fire burns out. We should be reaching the city tomorrow.”

Alistair nods, though he’s reluctant to leave this little moment of peace they’ve found. Neria must be, too, because she just lies there with him for a few moments. He feels her hand brush his, and he takes it, their fingers interlocking.

Eventually, they stand up and make their way back to camp, Neria distracting Zevran from where he’s irritating Wynne and Alistair helping Leliana with taking account of what they’d collected today. But when he finally heads to his tent to get some sleep, Neria catches his eye and smiles at him, cheeks still a little pink.

And, like he always does, he smiles back.

[womanfredvonkarma]

Hi Dae! Sent a similar ask to Vi but I thought you would also be a good person to ask. A friend has enlisted me to help her find good books and movies and we are now at the stage of searching for more general/meta advice on finding (high-quality) books/movies on particular themes that are too hard to concisely describe for a straightforward search to yield much. If the question is too specific, any general description of how you pick books/movies for your to-read/to-watch list would be great, and if that's also hard to do then top-of-your-head fantasy/sci-fi recs are also much appreciated. Feel free to ignore this if you're too busy or don't know how to answer of course!

Hi! I'm happy that you thought of me, but I don't have a lot of advice because there's a lot of serendipity involved for me. Taking the latest novels I've most enjoyed, for example, I discovered Solaris because I watched Tarkovsky's film adaptation—and I discovered the movie because my high school professor mentioned it in class in 2020. I similarly read Crash because I watched the movie first, and I started reading Arlt because of a scene written by him that I heard read aloud on the radio by pure chance. So I guess my first real piece of advice is to keep your eyes and ears open?

I can't really speak on finding books on specific themes because I feel that they find me most of the time, but sometimes looking at which artists are friends with each other helps (Cronenberg and Clive Barker were like that to me), or seeing which filmmakers adapt which books (Cronenberg led me to Ballard and Burroughs). Tumblr parallels compilation posts aren't bad either.

Tumblr is a source of book recs to me too. I got a good percentage of my current TBR just by following Vi lol, and when I see a quote I really like I normally add the source to my TBR too (same with gifsets and movies). I also like to browse through bookshops even if I don't have money atm, just in case something catches my eye. Those two sources plus what my professors mention make up the bulk of it, but since I started logging my reading on The Storygraph (kind of like Goodreads) I also look at what it recommends me from time to time. The algorithm can't quite nail your preferences, but I do find stuff I wouldn't have found otherwise. You can also search for recommendations filtered by genre and mood there.

For movies, aside from seeing gifsets, I sometimes discover them through the actors in them. Very rarely, I click on Letterboxd's "films like" feature out of curiosity and find some interesting films.

I don't know if that was helpful, but as for sci-fi book recommendations, I can give you off the top of my head Solaris by Stanisław Lem (a psychologist is sent to a station that orbits around a planet covered by a vast, possibly sapient ocean), Crash by J.G. Ballard (a group of car crash fetishists explore the relationship between the human body and technology), and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (political intrigue set on a planet populated by hermaphrodite aliens). In terms of fantasy, His Dark Materials is a series for children that I still find a lot of value in as an adult.

For movies, my first recommendation is Cronenberg's early body horror films (especially Videodrome, Crash, and The Fly) plus Crimes of the Future (2022). I also recommend Poor Things (2023) (describing it as a female Frankenstein's monster does neither character justice, but you get the gist), Primer (2004) (convoluted time travel movie), Pan's Labyrinth (2006) (dark fantasy set in post-war Spain), and of course Solaris (1972). I also rather liked the Alien prequels (as well as obviously the original films, but those are better known).

I hope this was somewhat helpful and good luck!

[petrichoraline]

Oml, you've been watching back from the brink, ryt??? I'm only at the start of the drama and setting up my watchlist to be able to get ahead with this story too but overall, are there any spoiler-free opinions/reviews that you hv in store for this drama? I'd love to know!!

ana, love, i am sorry! i haven't seen it <3 i saw the tip of your ask, opened mdl and started calculating how quickly i could binge it so i could answer you as quickly as possible but it'd take about 30 hours straight🥹i tend to rb stuff i don't watch and i was honestly wondering if i should mention that in the tags but thought "ehhh no need" and look what happened 🫠

i have two moots i trust when it comes to cdramas and as far as i know neither of them watched it - one dropped it and the other never started it despite wanting to? what i got is that it's somehow childish? which honestly isn't a turn off for me personally, i can go for goofy and cheesy depending on mood, some people can't so it really depends on what you enjoy (which is smth i don't know about you so i can't directly say whether you should go for it or not💕); side note: i personally have fondness for the main actress because she played my cute a xiang in word of honor and i was tempted to start it for her lol

seeing how you've started it already i'd say make an opinion for yourself - the reason i'm not linking you to opinion threads and stuff is cause based on my dash while it was airing, there were both ppl who dlsiked it and people who enjoyed it enough to consistently put out whole gifsets. when i haven't seen a show i can't really discern which reviews do it justice and which could create a damaging impression on any potential viewers for no good reason.

you mentioned schedule so imo you should prioritise your other shows butttt save those moments in your schedule where you have time for a few episodes in a row for this series so you can tell if it's your vibe more easily (binging serves for better flow and you can get an overall feel of the drama) and quickly (which is good in case it isn't your thing and you decide to watch smth else or it does turn out to be really enjoyable and you want to move it up the priority list)

sorry to mislead and i hope this wasn't an annoying answer <3 thank you for the amazing ask, i get genuinely hyped when i get smth like it ❣️💞🥰💖💓

[saltlickmp3]

ALso in that x files ep uhhh small potatoes thats the one. i knew what was coming cos i saw gifsets lol but the end scene where theyre both kind of awkward cos she thought that guy Was mulder. and she says 'i dont think you need to be told this but youre not a loser' and he says 'yeah but im not a [whatever that guys name was dennis or whatver] either' - like she thought she was opening up to mulder & yeah he was acting weird but like realistically she had little reason to suspect it wasnt him cos he. looked like mulder you know sh ethought she was telling him funny stories from when she was younger & hanging out & getting a bit tipsy and she wasnt entirely opposed to kissing him like she was nervous & hesitant sure but ofc she was.

& then the real mulder bursts in & she a) realises who she was talking to and b) obv embarrassed that shed been opening up to this guy who was kinda a creep but like it could have been A Lot Worse and c) mudler saw her about to kiss someone d) mulder saw her about to kiss. well. mulder. wild implications there*. e) she knows that he knows he saw her about to kiss him (theres a grammatical nightmare) and he knows that she was going to kiss him after a nice evening together which leads to his point that f) he doesnt think that He could do that. that despite everything he doesnt know if he has the nerve or the... social skills? or the general anything to be able to even get close to that point. like he doesnt think that could ever happen to Him even though im sure at this point hes considered it a few times. but now he knows that scully is....... idk whatevr she is!! like she doenst know her feeling for him for sure & vice versa & what are either of them supposed to do with that!!!!!!!!

& that guy saying 'i was born a loser. youre a loser by choice' to him like. mulder is well aware he's dug himself into a hole of insane dimensions due to the everything and in a another world he is a normal good looking guy with a college degree & probably a beautiful wife(/husband. imagine with me) but noooo he has to spend his life in the fbis basement & constantly in mortal danger chasing after shadows. & im sure he's spiteful about that sometimes but he has the strength of his convictions to pull him through. & scully has the strength of his convictions because he is holding this whole thing together through sheer force of will but could fly off the handle so so quickly. & scully keeps him grounded NOT !! in a 'only braincell mum friend' way but with her rationality & he is truly grateful for that but he'd never say it because. he just wouldnt. i think he gets around to it eventually. like anything happens to either of them - when mulder wanders into a gulag looking for evidence scully gets herself held in contempt of court cos she refuses to tell them anything about what he's doing until she knows for sure Real Justice will happen & scully gets abduction cancer & mulder (& skinner too lol) is threatening people over it. which is just!! so them!! mulder gets overly emotional & tries to use force & scully tries to use the system & point out the facts

also. the shapeshifter guy in mulders body being like. holy shit why does this guy like. suck. why doesnt he have a bed in his apartment. why are all his friends conspiracy theorists. what the hell. & then trying to look cool for five mintues which was so funny cos i can picture mulder doing the exact thing lol

personally i think mulder would be a fuck your clone kind of guy i was hoping he would say something weirdly homoerotic to teh guy while he looked like him in an earlier scene but it didnt happen. uhhh anyways

[cup-noodle]

3, 5, 6, 8, 13, and 18 for the fanfic new year asks!

Alright let's go, thanks for the ask!! It got long so I put it under the cut

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one?

Honestly, I probably will! I've only put out two fics and one original work so far, so there's a good chance of getting attacked by a fic idea for something else and writing it. Currently I've been back in the Top Gun: Maverick brainrot so it might be that!

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

You probably guessed this one but I'm hoping to wrap up Project Jade sometime this year (probably in summer), it's been the one I've been working on for over a year now. Although some shorter fics might happen before that if inspiration strikes. For a snippet, you can have this one from a later chapter:

Her eyes flitted over to the closet door. Inside, underneath her box of winter shoes, lay hidden the files. Had she known how much hell those pieces of paper would raise for them, she never would have opened her mouth in that hallway. Never.

They'd decided keeping the files close and secret was the best plan of action for the moment. They didn't know what else to do but hold on to them and wait until an opportunity to do some real damage presented itself - that's why they were waiting.

That's what Freya kept telling herself, anyways. That's and what she and Oscar had agreed on. But in truth, there was another thing at play. She knew what kind of power those files possessed, and she was scared shitless. They had seen first-hand the ramifications of interfering with the wrong people, and she wanted nothing more than to forget about it all. To stop worrying about who was going to drop dead next. But it couldn't be nearly that simple.

So she closed the notebook, threw a pillow onto the floor next to Oscar with his laptop, and took a seat. "Alright, what now?"

"You're the green chicken," he hurried to explain, pointing at the avatar of a neon green hen with a comically large knife in its beak. "You have the arrows to move, Q for attack, and- Hey, stop laughing! This is deadly serious," he chided, but she couldn't help but crack up too as they locked eyes. As far as distractions went, this would do just fine.

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

Like I said I've been thinking about Top Gun: Maverick a lot and I've got a pretty detailed idea for a 5+1 fic about Mav and Rooster over the course of the kid's life. More specifically it's five moments when Mav has to parent Bradley after Goose's death and has no idea what he's doing, and then one time when he knows exactly what to do (at the end of the movie, unsurprisingly).

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

At some point I'd really love to try writing something more dystopian or apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic), I adore those kind of settings. I have some vague ideas but nothing concrete yet, and honestly I doubt anything's gonna happen this year cause I already have a big project on my hands. Hopefully sometime in the future though!

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

I occasionally do some drawing and fanart, so I'd love to do more of that if I have time. Learning how to draw people has been a pain in the ass but getting better at drawing characters is the current goal. Gotta do my blorbos justice.

18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method?

I've done one two-parter and one longer multi-chapter thing, and for both I did something in between. I like to have a fair amount written for the whole thing before posting anything, and then I write the missing bits and edit chapter by chapter as I go. It does result in pretty inconsistent posting but I'm a sucker for feedback and wanting to post it helps with motivation, so I'm sticking with it for the moment.

[kitkatt0430]

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

16. Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

24. By the end of this year, you want your fandom to think of you as “that author who _______.”

I've answered 13 here

16. Do you have that one fanfic that you wrote a ton for, ages ago, but never posted? Will this be the year, come hell or high water, that it WILL get finished and posted?

So I've got the beginning of two different sequels to Nothing (Everything) To Lose written and they're not mutually exclusive - one is intended to cover the events of Rise from the Ashes and would be pre Miles/Phoenix (Ema can totally see it). Phoenix does not take well to Lana having used Miles' car to transport the victim's body because she potentially could have framed Miles by doing so.

The other is set during Farewell, My Tournabout with flashbacks to pre-Justice For All when Miles - having witnessed a murder just as he and Phoenix have finally begun dating - has to fake his death and leave town in order as a sort of temporary witness protection until the case can come to trial. It needs serious rewriting even though there's really not much to it yet because... I want it to go in a different direction than originally intended.

It's all been sitting around for a long time and I've been struggling to get back into it. So on my to-do list this year is to replay the first two Ace Attorney games to see if that reignites my interest to work on these two.

24. By the end of this year, you want your fandom to think of you as “that author who _______.”

hmmm, well I am already the Hartley Rathaway fanfic author for many and I do enjoy that association. ^_^

But I hope that I get seen as an author who did a good job of getting into podficcing this year. My nephew sure likes me reading to him and while that isn't the same as podficcing, I still count him as my biggest fan right now. ;)

[codenamesailordarillium]

Oh, both mentions are terrible. So bad they might as well have ignored her like they did Martha (justice for Martha). 13 telling Yaz (YAZ) that she likes her even better than her wife, 15 grouping River in with Adric (ADRIC) as ‘people we’ve lost’ rather than with Sarah Jane and Rose as ‘people we’ve loved’. On balance, 13´s mention might be very very slightly better? At least it highlights the nature of that relationship. 15 might as well have said ‘Professor River Song, archaeologist, Luna University’ for all the personalisation in that mention lol.

Oh trust me, I am very much in agreement about both, my friend.

I was gonna hold off until actually watching the sea devils ep, but honestly might as well say it here that errything I've seen so far of the 13&Yaz "romance" seems to have been heavily shoehorned into Flux & the rest of 13's specials. Specifically, mentioning "her wife" seems to me kind of a half-assed shorthand of trying to make it seem like 13 reciprocates whatever feelings Yaz suddenly has for her without actually putting in the work to actually show it. Basically it's like: ooh yeah, Doctor have wife, Doctor love wife, we mention wife for purpose of showing Doctor love this person too! Which, while obviously heavily colored by the embittered shipper goggles I wear, still objectively isn't the most impactful way to communicate romantic feelings. If anything, the impression I had when I first saw gifsets of the infamous "even my wife" line read more as 13 awkwardly trying to let Yaz down easy seems like it'll probably hold.

And I mainly say it seems shoved into Flux because my honest impression of 13 & Yaz's interactions in the prior two seasons to overall not be much materially different than those 13 has with Graham or Ryan. Other than the scene in the Mary Shelley ep where she's talking to the girl involved with Byron and mentions that her "special person" is kinda different, there's nothing there that would've explicitly made me think Yaz had feelings for the Doctor (tho I'm sure some would strongly argue for her screaming at the end of Spyfall p.1 when Dhavvan!Master yeets 13 out of the plane).

As for 15, yeah, unfortunately Ncuti's delivery of the way he says her name does come off rather detached and so I'm struggling a bit with it. I'll be honest, I don't love all the promo that seems to be hinting that 15 could potentially end up having something going on with Ruby. Don't have a ton of hope there, honestly kinda worried Rusty's probably gonna recycle his "Penny" concept of the companion that was originally supposed to come after Martha that 10 was supposed to fall head over heels for.

Honestly, it's been a bit of a frustrating time as a River & Doctor/River fan. I'm not out here looking to hate on Chib or I guess Rusty at this point for no reason, but the continued erasure of River's character is demoralizing as time goes on. Especially when sentiment in overall DW fandom in the past seemed to have been that we should just get over her because her story was "done". DW tends to be a veritable parade of previous characters making their glorious returns all the time, yet for some reason wanting River back in that capacity is unacceptable, even tho technically speaking that was the whole intent of her character originally, knowing the Doctor throughout all their past & future faces.

I think I'm just rambling at this point, but there are a lot of repressed feelings regarding all this that I haven't deigned to express in the past because I try my best not to dwell on fandom shit that I know will inevitably upset me. I guess I've hit something of a breaking point, so sorry for using your ask as a jumping off point to let off this particular steaming kettle anon.

[goatsandgangsters]

Update: I wound up sitting on the couch with @meyerlansky while they caught up, so I've now seen episodes 2.04–2.08 and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE

it was extremely funny watching this with someone who has like, deep lore. the book lore. and then there’s me like “what’s this person’s name and how are they related to everyone else” 

so here are some Updated uninformed outsider opinions, based on four episodes at the end and my incredibly vague prior impressions:

to this guard man who’s following alicent around: I don’t care how brown your big cow eyes are, you’re a little bitch and I hope your dick never gets wet again. fuck you

rhaenyra has other children right? cause her main one… kinda sucks? this instagram boy blue-steeling all over the place is kind of getting on my nerves 

conversations during hotd: “are they fucking?” “yes.” “are they related?” “yes.”

OHHHH I did NOT realize that Uncle Matt Smith is the undefeated winner in Westeros’s Dampest Wettest Man Contest 

the gifsets do not do rhaeynrera justice because HOT VOICE TOO UNFAIRRRRR

I’m very happy for her and her new gal pal, I hope they enjoy plenty of scissoring. perhaps a little strange that she was like "so here's my rape as backstory" and rhaenyra was like "hell yeah, let's make out RIGHT now" but I'm happy for them nonetheless

pleased to know that the hot gilf who died just before I tuned in ALSO had a hot man. his beautiful bastard children are also extremely beautiful. tho I question why he has bastard children if he had hot gilf like why would you ever?? unless he and hot gilf had a late-in-life romance, in which case good for them and these are bastards from a previous era. or. well. wait ARE the beautiful bastard children the bastards of hot gilf? considering one of them is on a dragon now and all? I didn’t actually ask about the family tree situation here, I was busy watching The Beautiful Man get chased around by a dragon that wants to be his best friend

I’m predisposed to like Weird Scottish Lady because I saw her in a production of Hamlet years ago and she was incredible as Ophelia, which reminded me to get Cabaret tickets before she leaves in like a month 

also I love Freddie Fox. he’s such a delight in everything I’ve ever seen him in. which ALSO includes hamlet, but a totally different production than above. he is so cunty all the time and I love him

oh I fucking STAN that twelve-year-old who just ran rINGS around everyone and pulled the biggest power-move in the history of all these adults in westeros. child, you are GOING PLACES 

sdjfkhgskfjdh blue-steel child dropping I HAVE DARK HAIR, BLOND HAIR IS RECESSIVE, I’M BASTARD, like damn that took sean bean all season to figure out  

OHHHH GRANDMA WARCRIMES IS BIIIIIIIIIG!!!!

“antlered human-shape clip-clopping” I fucking love subtitles wtf

I think maybe it sucks that they’re killing all the dragons. I know the point of this show is “this stuff happened and all the dragons died” and I know that there’s a thread of environmentalism throughout GRRM’s work but I just think, what if you didn’t hurt the dragons

I got really confused when haelena mentioned being queen cause I was like "now hold up. that's not how monarchies work. because if aemond's aegon's king and they're siblings, that Does Not Make Her queen" and kara was like "no they're also married" and SOMEHOW I DIDN'T OSMOSIS THAT PLOT POINT AT ALL?

kara: do you want a correction on this post. aegon's king me: GODDAMMIT. WHY DO THEY HAVE THE SAME NAME. I CAN NEVER REMEMBER me: okay. here's my mnemonic. the one who's like >:3 is aeGON because he would Gone Girl someone kara: wrong! that's aemond me: GODDAMMIT!!!!!

I liked freddie fox being like "hello I'm here to be cunty and kill you" and cow-eyes was like "go ahead. life sucks. I'm suicidal." and watching freddie fox just cuntily be like "uuugghhh I don't caaare about your feeeelings but now there's no joy in killing you, this is so awkward and uncomfortable ugh"

I’m a little bit concerned about this child running around on the moors trying to horsegirl a feral dragon, but I think it’ll probably be alright because I’m genre savvy about how horsegirl books work 

I just don’t understand why this elder brunette child looks like this in every scene 😗

THE NON-DRAGON BEAUTIFUL BASTARD SON WINS THE MONOLOGUE AWARD!!!! 

perhaps I would feel differently if I hadn’t just… plopped down to watch a handful of episodes at the end, but that did kinda feel more penultimate than finale? I thought there were gonna be more dragons going pew pew at each other in the sky. I thought "dragons going pew pew" was like, their whole deal

anyway, I’ve seen Exactly Four Episodes of the show, I know marginally more names now kind of, I still have a very loose grasp of this ouroboros family tree, but it does not matter. because there were dragons.

I tried to summarize what I've osmosis'd about house of the dragon purely from my dash & my partner and decided to post it

caveat: I am horrible with names and I did not fact-check the spelling of a n y o n e ' s name

so. first of all. lesbians.

there’s Alicent who is “a repressed lesbian who’s never had an orgasm in her life” (quoth @meyerlansky). I don’t think she knows this about herself, but it’s true. there’s also Rhaneyra who is Extremely Hot and bisexual. (this I know to be factual!! I saw the kissing gifs with that other woman!! I saw them!!) anyway, Alicent and R had an adorable childhood first-love situation that they didn’t realize was them being in love but They Were In Love. then it all went to fuck, because Alicent had to marry Rhenyra’s… father? stepfather? some crusty old relation of hers? and this was bad for them, because Alicent is a lesbian and was also STILL TINY, so marrying your bff/love-of-your-life’s crusty old man relation is Not A Good Time For Either Of You 

Rhaenyra—I’m just gonna spell it different every time until I figure it out, but I think this one is right—anyway Rhaenyra is married to Matt Smith but I don’t think he like… matters? I get the sense he’s kind of one of the Main Dudes but I also don’t know anything about what he like. Does? oh also he’s her uncle 

there are……… three children. I’m not entirely positive whose children they are. I think they’re Alicent’s children. There’s—oh god—ONE OF THEM is Aemond and one of them is Aegon, only I’m not sure which is which. this is super embarrassing because @meyerlansky 's fave is “whichever is the one with the long hair and the eyepatch” so I SHOULD know this. but I'm bad with names and I just call the one who is their fave “three-mouth” bc he looks like that meme of the cat going >:3 at a knife. there’s also Helena, who was a small weird child who likes bugs, and whose name is definitely spelled differently than that 

anyway. Ae-something (the one who looks like this >:3) has a dragon who is old and senile and her name is Grandma Warcrimes. and she accidentally (?) ate Ae’s couuuuusin, his name is Lu-something-or-other. this was a very significant thing that happened 

Alicent’s Squad and Rhaenyra’s Squad have Major Significant Beef with each other, only I have honestly no idea what it is, other than like… their unresolved sexual tension

there’s also. okay wait. someone has a gay husband, yes? there’s a handsome Black man who is gay? was heeeee WAIT WAIT. Handsome Gay Husband was Rhaenyra’s husband, but she was fucking around with Uncle Matt Smith, so all her kids are… Uncle Matt Smith’s? and then Handsome Gay Husband died (was killed? for being gay maybe?) and then she married Uncle Matt Smith instead? 

OH! WAIT WAIT WAIT. I’M PIECING IT TOGETHER I THINK. SO THE BEEF. Grandma Warcrimes ate Cousin Lululemon, who was…. like one of them is Alicent’s child and one of them is Rhaeynera’s, so the beef—in addition to the rampant lesbian sexual tension—is also about “your kid killed my kid on the playground” kind of an issue? (see now I’m second-guessing myself whose kid is whose based on hair color but whatever) 

there’s also a GILF. she literally Just Died. which is sad, because she was hot rip 

so yeah. that's all I got. that's all I've absorbed. this show is about lesbians and dragons and people are mad at each other for Reasons. I don’t know what those reasons are but they sure are fighting and killing about it! 

[alwayskissmeatnight]

Mr. Davis bent down to pick up the phone "Now what was so important that it couldn’t wait until after school?" he looked at the text messages while Yann, Basile and Arthur slid down in their chairs, trying to hide.

"Aha I see, weekend plans during class. Well your weekend will have to wait a little longer today, you all got yourself detention."

”I bet he gets with any girl he wants.” he added staring at the doorframe Eliott had disappeared through.

”Not just girls I heard.“

“So there won’t be any studying tonight, Lucas thought. I wonder if he ever had the intention to study when he came over.”

“Why did you invite me here tonight?“

“Lucas?“ he asked quietly

“Hm?“ “I’m gonna kiss you now.“

“I really had a good time on Friday btw. Do you want to hang out again soon?“

“Yeah me too but this is all going too fast for me right now, sorry.”

These high walls by @germericangirl 💛

[nikolaj-costerwaldau]

Timothy Olyphant talks about his Avengers: Infinity War cameo that was cut

[drshebloggo]

Since you offered your services for an ask - I would love to hear you talk about the dialogue that Greta and Carson had in the pizza parlor about wanting (and not wanting) kids. That was the scene that most neatly juxtaposed the differences between the life possibilities that I currently have as a queer person versus what would have been possible for Greta and Carson. And kids are a theme that comes up multiple times in the show, but a theme that is difficult to explore in a gifset. I know you can do it justice! Delighted to see that you’re as intrigued by this show (and Greta Gill) as I am.

Hello hello! Thank you so much for the ask, and even more for qualifying my answer as a service, bless. I fear I may have answered all AROUND your question and didn't quite address it as you had hoped... Truly, there are 17 paragraphs beyond this cut, of which fewer than half are about the thematic concept of kids, so please feel free to follow up and swat me into a better direction on the topic.

Broadly speaking, this show does such a good job communicating that ACHE of wanting something that is not possible. That's the whole point! If you have a show centered on queer women and Black women playing baseball in the 40s, then that is absolutely the context for the show: these women want things they could not easily have. The show reminds us that their triumphs and joys are meaningful because there is pain in having been denied them over and over.

The character that gets this treatment the most is Max, rightfully, and for obvious reasons. The next one is Greta, who embodies a paradox of freely embracing her identity while also completely heeding the boundaries confining her. The treatment also extends to Carson, by dint of their romance being front-and-center in the show. Carson joyously barrels down every Queer First of finding herself, and then naively slams headlong into the barriers Greta's been warning of the entirety of their relationship. There are limitations to what is possible between them.

And you're right, perhaps nowhere is this more clearly delineated than in the pizza scene - which exists in a similar paradox of freedom and confinement. They're on a date, in public, but they cannot behave as such. This is their first official date, and they’re talking about their future, and this conversation organically reveals what is possible and what isn't. The general friction in Greta and Carson's relationship is that Carson is consistently pushing towards hope and Greta is consistently withdrawing into fear and self-protection. 

Carson looks hopefully toward next year; Greta deflects by joking about making it big in Hollywood, then gets all-too-serious by asking if Charlie and Carson are going to have kids. This is the paradox again, and part of why casting a comedy actor as Greta is a very smart move: Greta clowns around as a defense mechanism and flirtation device to skirt confrontation with reality. But when pressed with reality she will retreat into a very pragmatic hopelessness. Which not all comedy actors can do, but D’Arcy Carden, portrayer of a million Janets, is fantastic. Particularly in this scene. The wistful beat with the nose crinkle before she changes the subject to something less painful? I’m wailing on my couch.

But yes, with hope looming like an impossibility, Greta's the one to bring up a dose of reality over fantasy. She asks about kids because she expects that Carson, a Housewife, will fulfill this expectation, and Greta's always looking ahead for the Disappointment, to plan for the moment when she needs to cut her losses and move on. But Carson looks to her future and doesn’t see it in the life she was living before the AAGPBL. 

So there’s also this underlying friction between Carson having lived a traditional white woman's life (by 1940s standards - married, settled, housewife) somewhat haplessly, and Greta purposefully performing cherry-picked aspects of white femininity to appear traditional while not actually living that way. Or WANTING to live that way, it’s important to note. She blatantly identifies that the obstacle to having kids, which she would want, is that she never wants to keep a man, part of the bargain for women in the 40s. It’s not a sacrifice she’s willing to make.

For Greta, all of these possibilities she presumes are reality for Carson exist ONLY in a completely different world for herself, and that world isn't opening up for her anytime soon. And it is PAINFUL to know, as a viewer 80 years in the future, that Greta and Carson wouldn't live long enough to have kids the way queer people can now. They are simply living in a world that isn't changing fast enough to accommodate them.

I think the ways that kids show up as a theme in the show is tethered to two things: 1) the complex mother-daughter relationships the show puts forth (Carson and her mom, Max and her mom, Clance and her mom, Greta and her mom, Lupe and her daughter) and 2) the idea that children are inextricably connected to womanhood in that time period. (Hell, even today.)

That same friction between tradition and progression comes alive in both of these avenues with kids, too. The mothers want their children to be people that their children don't want to be. In Carson's case, she doesn't want to become her mother because her mother abandoned her role as caretaker of the family. In one way or another, Greta’s mom, Clance’s mom, and Jo’s grandmother are not portrayed to have been good caretakers either. Lupe, when she became a mother, was presumed to be unfit, and took the denial of responsibility as a bid for freedom.

And then there’s Toni. Toni is the Main Mom on the show, an embodiment of Traditional Mom Caretaker, and the writers even gave HER a backstory where she would have been content without a husband, but God sent a good man her way. She is a business owner, a woman with a shrewd mind for how to survive within the boundaries that are placed around Black women. 

But entangled in these explorations of mothers and children is this societal idea that intrinsic in motherhood is the necessity of sacrifice. Greta isn’t willing to sacrifice loving women in order to keep a man and have children. Lupe saw motherhood as a kind of imprisonment in a life she didn’t want at 17, and not assuming the role of a mother allowed her the freedom to escape. Maybelle can’t be a mom and a baseball player at the same time, so she leaves her kids to live her life to the fullest for a summer.

Truthfully, each of the characters has a complicated relationship with sacrifice, running parallel to maternal sacrifice, because ultimately this is a show about people who are living in a world with limits to possibility - whether due to their gender, race, or sexuality. And there are always sacrifices for those folks living in a limited world. Toni found the ways forward in a society that limits Black women and made the sacrifices she saw necessary because they were worth it to her. Because of her experience, Toni thinks sacrifices are part of life, which is why she looked ahead for Bertie and Max and started planning how (she thought) they could circumvent their inevitable obstacles, as an act of love. 

But for most of the queer characters, the same sacrifices aren’t worth the cost of being denied their identity. So again, there’s the joy, and the pain, in tandem. It’s what binds the whole series together as they tell the stories of these folks who are queer and/or Black and/or Hispanic in a world that doesn’t want them. The ever-present ache of what’s possible and what isn’t, and the negotiation of living a happy future.

Carson not wanting kids is interesting, because it’s so closely connected to a) her fear of being like her mom, and b) the possibility that she views motherhood as a final nail in the coffin of a marriage that while arguably survivable is not fulfilling. One wonders if she might want kids with a different partner, or with different expectations for motherhood, or without having to physically give birth. It’s hard to say, and there are a lot of reasons any person might not want kids. On the other hand, it’s not hard to imagine that Greta would want kids partly to have the chance at being a better mother to her own child than her own mom, and Jo’s grandmother, and - absolutely, Dana’s mother. There’s also probably something about the innocent joy of childhood that Greta would want to be able to return to, even vicariously, as someone who suffered a pretty traumatic event as a teenager and hasn’t ever recovered. Another manifestation of the ache.

Circling back around to the pizza scene, I think it’s important to talk a little more about the context for that scene in the episode as a whole. It’s dancing around these possibilities and limits the entire time, and ends on Greta finally agreeing to go to the gay bar if they make it to the championships. Their relationship is now pushing, thanks to Carson, toward possibility, with Greta relenting her pull of pragmatism. The easiest explanation for Greta saying yes is her previous conversation with Jo, which planted a seed in her head that maybe the world is capable of changing. I think there’s also something to be said for the fact that the conversation about kids immediately before Carson’s proposition erodes some of Greta’s resistance, because it’s simply depressing to think about. So she opens herself up to the possibility of the joy that she can have. 

Then, of course, they make the championships (joy), go to the gay bar (limitless joy), and it ends up getting raided and Jo gets arrested (limits, reality, pain). What AGONY that as soon as Carson convinces Greta to believe in hope, the entire dream comes crashing down and Greta’s fears are affirmed once more. 

But that’s the show: the ache of wanting what isn’t possible, and the joy of those moments when reality can be wheedled into a dream - the five minutes, as Max and Carson later call it. And of course, this central idea is encapsulated perfectly in Episode 6 - where the pizza scene sits almost at the exact middle, a fulcrum on which the season is about to tilt, through Greta’s hopeful acquiescence - with a narrative device and a turn of phrase.

The narrative device is, of course, the use of The Wizard of Oz - a piece of media that is ostensibly intended for children, but that has captured the imagination of adults just as much, if not more. And I think it’s because The Wizard of Oz has that ache. It’s constructed in the same way as the way the show constructs the two worlds of reality and possibility - Kansas, and Oz. A troubled world of black-and-white, a world of rainbow color. The shitty world, and the queer world. (If you’re a music nerd who’d like to hear how “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is constructed around the ache, I direct you here, a musical analysis I’ve been obsessed with for over 10 years.)

The show gets MILEAGE out of The Wizard of Oz without being too heavyhanded, from its clever incorporation of “friend of Dorothy” to its bridging of multiple main characters (love you, Clance), and its gut-punching final moments with Glinda and Dorothy repeating “There’s no place like home” as Greta and Carson numbly process being ripped back into reality and the episode cuts to black.

Home, is, of course, where the episode pivots their narrative device into a clever turn of phrase that neatly and painfully hits the show’s thesis. I don’t think I’ve ever had an episode title quite knock the wind out of me the way this one did. “Stealing Home” fits in with all the other episode titles in that it is a baseball maneuver. In baseball world, it’s a DIFFICULT maneuver. (Yes, I am one of the ALOTO fans who actually does care about the baseball.) It’s incredibly risky to do because as a runner, you are heading directly into the path of the ball where you could either score a run (joy!) or get tagged out (defeat!). It requires dire circumstances, finding a tiny window of opportunity, and taking your shot when it comes. So it’s apt, no?

But it’s also apt in its double meaning, and how it connects to The Wizard of Oz and the queer context of the show. It probably doesn’t need stating; everyone here is smart. But this is, of course, the episode where so many of the queer characters - Max, Greta, Carson, Jo, Bertie, Gracie - are able to live safely in the dream for a few brief blissful moments. The party at Bertie’s, the scene at Vi’s bar. The dream is that queer folks can find home in reality, and that Oz and Kansas are not that far apart. It’s those five minutes of joy, of possibility, of fantasy. It’s waiting for the right moment and risking everything to charge forward and seize the chance for joy because it might not come again. And it encapsulates the central thesis of the show for these characters: possibility lives out of reach most of the time. So you must find opportunities and steal them wherever you can. In the meantime, there will be an ache.

[gothprentiss]

hey, so i loved your recent emily prentiss post with the fatalism and providence quote and i was reading your tags about how the answer to doyle's question was both and i wondered if you'd be willing to share any more thoughts on that? i just found it really fascinating.

hi!! yes, for sure, and thanks for asking! sorry that this is long!! (gifset in question here btw)

the tl;dr for this is that while i do think i'm reading too much into this question, a primary tension in the whole doyle arc (beyond the obvious Will Doyle Kill Her) is what kind of person is emily prentiss, and what kind of person is she capable of being. and while i think that the quote is really meant to lean more towards 'person of action inclined to fatalism', the conditions of her survival are providential. the preventative actions prentiss takes are all sort of business as usual emily prentiss-- she's independent, instinctively and to a fault, suspicious and self-protective, and very concerned not to involve anyone who ought not be. (i've probably said this a lot but i do love how unique this storyline is to her particular moral status, and how she compartmentalizes. with another character this repeated insistence that her team shouldn't be involved might just read as like, a pretty boilerplate moment of self-sacrificing nobility but it's far more essential to her and her worldview i think.) but the central unit of criminal minds is the team, and the show's firmest belief is in that team-- so she can't do it alone. so repeatedly we see her trying to act against fate* (*something something how this show thinks about narrative and justice), and repeatedly failing to thwart it, or otherwise believing that the outcome is already set (e.g., "i beat you, ian, before you even got out of north korea, i beat you"). a simple and facile distinction i'm going to make here is between determinism (fatalism) and intervention (providence) (again, more under the cut). the presence of her team functions as the latter. you might say doyle is asking her, "do you think this is going to end with your death, or do you think you can be saved?"

annoying distinction: 1) what actually happens 2) what she appears to think and believe.

what actually happens is providential, point-blank period. her team arrives, she's saved, she's spirited away while they track doyle down; while the set up is the prentiss-doyle face off with their respective teams as auxiliaries, it is the entire bau that gets him. that's all intervention.

but i think what we see her thinking is really, like, teetering on the edge of this sort of grim determination to bring this to a close and this Tragically Beautiful hope that her entire worldview is wrong.

[the above is what i was going for with the first two gifs— emily on night watch in her own home, with that air of inevitability and expectation; and emily with derek in valhalla, when they’re talking about whether or not the shooters were trying to attract the fbi, and while she’s clearly agreeing with him to placate him, i kind of read that moment as hoping against hope that he’s right, and that what she knows to be true might somehow be false.]

where we leave the emily prentiss this season is, i think, sort of this interstitial position: on one hand, she's been rescued, but she's sort of doing lauren reynolds again. things haven't really changed for her-- but now the team is on the case. it's hard not to imagine her-- wounded, isolated, and in hiding-- being faced with the same existential question: what does she believe will happen? is it that this is going to keep happening until either she or doyle is killed, again and again tearing her life apart, threatening declan, and never letting her live beyond her time undercover? or is the team going to catch him?

okay! that's the short version! some notes below the cut re: terms and some sort of shallow interpretive stuff about the quote; and more on the gifset in particular. thanks again for asking and sorry for the length of this xoxo

first, the balzac quote (which, for whatever it’s worth, i actually went and found the source of because you won’t find the quote sourced anywhere! and it took a long time! it’s from splendeurs et misères des courtisanes)— It is a strange thing that most men of action have a tendency to fatalism, just as most great thinkers have a tendency to believe in Providence. // Chose étrange, presque tous les hommes d’action inclinent à la Fatalité, de même que la plupart des penseurs inclinent à la Providence.

i’m always kind of on the fence about how much to read into the quotes CM bookends its episodes with. for example, you might say it’s interesting that fatalism and providence are both, in a sense, deterministic. fatalism entails a belief in fate’s inevitability, and any sort of providential thought places true agency in the hands of god or another intervening force. determinism tends to serve as an argument against any philosophy of free will. providence is more complex (we can act, god or the other big force intervenes), but it also forecloses on the possibility that everything's up to you in the end, since there's an unknowable force which may at any time intervene to change things according to its will. the two aren't opposites, is the point.

i think part of what balzac is getting at in that particular excerpt is that a person of action’s fatalism hinges more on the individual, in a way that we can see as isolating, or self-centered, or solipsistic. balzac's big example of the fatalist is Napoleon-- at one point, he calls fatalism his religion-- and i think the fact that the paradigmatic man of action fatalist is also one of the Great Men of History is important here. i'm gonna go pretty off-book from here on out but that's a bit of due diligence. a fatalist is a person who believes they have a Destiny which is coming to pass around them. this might be their own personal Greatness; this might be a strong sense that nature and nurture come together and essentially automate your life (you couldn't have acted in any other way); god's omniscience; cause and effect. and so on. what i'm going to talk abut here is more like... narrative fatalism? basically, i think we get this question delivered to us in coda with the implication that this is going to end in death, and likely hers. we're retreading a lot of the major beats of the story of lauren reynolds, the stakes are the same, etc.

the way you can take the question which seems most strongly implied to me is “do you think you will die [you know, the other thing fatalism sounds like] or be saved?” when i am really overreading the show i think of emily prentiss as a character haunted by recursivity and the impossibility of change. like i said above, a lot of the doyle arc is a sort of redux of her time as lauren reynolds: her old team reforms around her, she's isolated and alone with doyle, and her false death at the end helps guarantee declan's safety a while longer. in this way,  there’s also the implication of “do you think this is how you’re supposed to die, or is there still hope for you?” and “will you act as you think you must, or do you think things might be different this time?”

in addition, i think we’re meant to see emily more as a person of action than of thought— certainly her preparations for doyle over the course of the episodes leading up to this moment at the end of coda have put their finger on the scales— and thus the question also implies that her essential nature is going to be tested. this tracks with where the episodes take us— her inability to trust and the way she favors working in isolation are dangerous, and her life is saved by her reunion with the team. providence!

second, i’m not really sure how much they set out to answer that question. for example, it’s one of the rare questions which is delivered diegetically, which would theoretically allow them to revisit the question. like “you know that ominous balzac quote you dropped on me a couple of days ago? well i’ve figured it out” [socks doyle in the face] or whatever. they might even have worked thematically across their opening and closing quotes if it was something they thought was meaningful rather than just a cool moment. the valhalla + lauren arc does end with this moment of providence, in a sense (her survival). but there doesn’t seem really to be a desire to actually deliver on the quote (i.e., both what she believes in and what kind of person she is are at stake in this whole character arc, but not in the terms that balzac provides). this is probably VERY obvious but i’m saying this to disclaim what i read as providence and fatalism in this context— these are pretty situational definitions and i’m sure any philosopher worth their salt would rap my knuckles for these readings.

okay those are my big disclaimers! more: re the gifset:

the doyle arc kicks off with this profound destabilization: this chapter of her life was supposed to be closed, but it isn't. as i said above, the gifs with the quote text are meant to reflect those particular forms of thought: her air of inevitability and falling back on old patterns; this moment of hope for change in her new setting, even though she feels it's impossible (faith babey! this is a fairly christian show but above all else its god is the team); and this moment where she chooses to go meet her fate, where everything's up in the air but is soon to come to its close.

one example of this is tsia: prentiss thinks her life is in danger and inadvertently leads her to her death by trying to save her. this has always struck me as very overtly about how prentiss can't change anything by falling back into old patterns (behaving more like a spy than a member of the team). emily's reaction to tsia's death is obviously one of immense grief and guilt, but also, i think, a sort of personal fear: she couldn't save her, she doesn't really have any way of managing the situation, and all places of safety are compromised-- the odds that she can save herself are looking pretty slim, too. so that's the sort of fatalism side of things-- the heavy hand of fate falls down upon her &c &c and there's nothing she can really do to escape its grasp. but that's not to say that this element of determinism is only negative: the whole thing about declan is, in her words, that she already beat doyle.

narratively, this is kind of dope. it works less like the fast-paced, gritty spy drama they're going for, and more like a pretty standard mystery: hidden at the center of it all is a secret, hidden narrative, and the story works towards its revelation (think of any mystery story where the detective puts it all together at the end). this has been foreshadowed all along, of course: right before doyle drops the balzac line on prentiss, he says "you took the only thing that mattered to me. now i'm going to take the only thing that matters to you: your life." this pretty heavily implies that he's either lost someone important to him (or that he's referring to his freedom, i guess). but the point is that even on the level of narrative, we're working towards an inevitable end which has already been set for us-- the revelation that she's saved declan, that she's already beat doyle, and has known it all along.

[i do think the declan thing kind of undermines a lot of the character work they did up until that point, but what can you do. it's a crime procedural.]

when i was making the gifset, i had this particular sort of thing in my head: on one hand, you've got this crushing inevitability; on the other, so much is revealed and changed. as i said above, the whole doyle arc has kind of a recursivity to it, both in its major narrative beats and its stakes. at the outset, we see prentiss on this huge precipice: will she live or will she die, and what kind of person is she? what kind of person has she been all along? if she lives, will she be different?

in coda, "lauren reynolds is dead" is kind of a lifeline-- this old identity has ceased to exist, and with her, the entire doyle case should be over. in lauren, reid says she said it like a mantra. a mantra is typically an object of meditation rather than, like, an argument or reminder you make to yourself (much 2 say here. not gonna say it), but the point here is that this seems to be kind of a touchstone for at least emily and tsia, a thing they say as a reminder that their safety should be guaranteed. there's a tacit flip side to that mantra, anyway: lauren reynolds is dead, emily prentiss is alive. and that latter fact is the whole problem.

similarly, i've always been fascinated by emily's "let me go" when derek finds her dying. after all, this whole arc really kicks off at the end of coda, when doyle says the thing that matters to her above all else is her life. now, you might just say that doyle is wrong about her. after all, he's only ever known her as lauren reynolds, a role she was playing, and imo paget brewster's character choices between lauren and emily are largely pretty distinct, enough that we can see (e.g. when doyle tells her the truth about declan) emily sort of emerging through lauren. but it feels in the scene like a bit of a character revelation: we're learning that emily prentiss has a whole different side to her, one which jars with the ethics of the show.

so you might say a couple of things here.

a lot of the doyle arc has been about what kind of person emily prentiss is. by lauren, it's clear that she will, at least to some extent, risk her own life to protect the team; and in the course of that episode it's also revealed that she's been risking her life all along to protect a child. so it's not the thing that matters most in the world to her, necessarily. this moment where she says "let me go" strikes me as potentially a VERY ham-handed moment of criminal minds writing in this vein: she's protected declan! her team is safe! she's not struggling to live because she's given her life for them! and in a similar vein, you might say she's decided that this is probably where it's ending. (i like that this has narrative and martyrological shape to it. i care very much that it's derek responding by telling her about herself almost hagiographically.) you might also say that she's trying to reassure her friend and partner who she knows will take her death so immensely to heart-- let me go as both let me die and let me go emotionally.

so on one hand, this is lauren again. the arc really kicks off with "lauren reynolds is dead" and, at least in s6, closes with a similar lie: "emily prentiss is dead." and she really is ready, at this point, to die, and if we take doyle's words about her to be true, this represents a fundamental shift in her values.

on the other hand, though, she's rescued. i think the providence reading is easier-- it's the team as the providential force. garcia's message for her really hammers this home: there's prentiss, alone and on the run, and penelope insisting very fiercely and very correctly that she's not alone. i think that final line from garcia (if you can see us, then come home. if you can't-- then you stay alive. cause we're coming) is an interesting revision on the balzac quote, falling heavily on the providential side. like, in this heavily foreshadowing metaphor, either emily sees the team coming for her (light in the darkness, c'mon, that's a belief metaphor) and returns to them; or she remains alone, acts as best she can, and they come to her aid anyway. that's the thing about providence, after all-- whether you think about it in a spiritual or secular way, it's not done according to your own will and capacities, and you can't really transact for it. you might merit it-- and i think derek's words to emily as she's bleeding out in his arms are partially to show she's merited her survival. she deserves to be saved, because of all that she truly is. (that's where, imo, lauren reynolds really dies as a way of conceptualizing her character.)

i ended the gifset with jj wishing her good luck because, beyond the moment of care this entails, wishing her luck feels, in the context of this arc, like a gesture which is predicated on a particular kind of hope. not the hope of, like, we've done everything we can to sort this out, or everything should go well, or anything in that particular and deterministic vein. like, sure, hope in the sense of "good luck staying in hiding" and so on. but there's a sense that her life is fundamentally restarting here, that her false death has also occasioned a rebirth. good luck, there's a whole new and different life opening out in front of you and so on.

like, i guess the point here is that i see it as both, neither, an open question too. this whole story arc is characterized by repetition & revelation, which suggest predetermination. when your past comes back for you with a vengeance, it does so because of what it contains. hauntings are and are of old structures. nothing that does not in some way preexist the moment of revelation can be revealed etc. etc. but on the other hand there's the obvious providential aspect of the team's involvement. and there's also the way we come to perceive prentiss throughout the arc. there's no peripatetic element here-- she still ran, still lied and kept secrets and closed people out-- but we learn that her motives aren't what they seemed to be in coda and valhalla. we're briefly given the possibility of her being Really Bad (i.e., that she'd have killed declan), and just as quickly this is dismissed. all of this kind of serves to morally rehabilitate her, at least enough for her to be seen as worthy of surviving. i'm sticking this up there with providence because i think this particular transaction of morality does fit into this worldview, one which you might say is more characterized by merit and grace (and their attendant emphases on virtue and morality) than anything else. it feels sort of microcosmically like william james' take on evil & theodicy-- there is a grand scheme in which goodness triumphs, and probably not perceptible to man-- insofar as we finally see the scale on which emily prentiss is being judged to be good. this all looks more than vaguely christian but i do think a lot of criminal minds is staked on the essential Goodness of its main characters, which is more my point than reading this all through an emily prentiss was raised catholic lens lol.

anyway, the point is that, because there's no really clear victory at the end of this arc beyond the then-pyrrhic victory of her survival, i think we end up in a position where you can’t really stake a claim in one or the other. i'm going to end this now due to length and also due to the fact that if anyone’s still reading, my god you are a brave soldier. but like—what actually happens? well, it’s kind of both. sometimes intervention thwarts inevitability, but not always, and not always in the ways that matter most. this is particularly relevant in terms of what emily prentiss actually believes, which is of course at stake in doyle's question-- the immediate and sharp blow of her failure to save tsia, the fact that she doesn't drop it all and go back to the team, the fact that she's even, until the last moment, still assuming that this is all happening outside of anyone's control. but the most important and most providential moment in all of this is her survival, and i think that lauren ends with emily prentiss not only having to like, find a new way of living under these new conditions, but also a new way of being in the world and seeing herself in it. and sometimes i think that her leaving the team is partially an act of apostasy but that's a strong weird and For Me take lol.