#idk if this post makes any sense but. my god this thought has been tormenting me

[unwelcome-tagalong]

so listen. i have this Thought i’ve been chewing on for a while. i wanted to wait and gather game screenshots and tiny details from Veilguard to add to this post as supporting evidence.

but this Thought is consuming me, dear readers and beloved followers. i must get it off my chest so i can rest, god help me.

the theme of this Thought is this: the devs and writers for Veilguard have told us the theme they were going for was Regret. but we could have just as easily called it:

Sometimes, There Are No Good Choices

captures the same idea, i think, no? so my Thought is this: when we think of the theme of Veilguard this way, a metaphorical interpretation of this theme arises which centers on the experience of the devs when making this game. i couldn’t presume to know whether or not that was intentional, and in the end, it doesn’t matter. let me tell you what i mean.

(under a cut for length and spoilers! also gonna give a teeny content warning for discussing my grief about the state of the dragon age franchise 💖)

i, like many people in our fandom, have been really shaken by news of the laying off of the entire dragon age team. there are lots of posts out there discussing the ethics of that situation—this is not that post.

this post is more of a love letter. but maybe the “bitter and sweet, like a kiss goodbye” kind. so many people are writing beautiful posts about not wanting to grieve something that isn’t dead—i’m so supportive of that sentiment, and if this is you, this post is probably not going to be your cup of tea. i know dragon age isn’t dead. but i am grieving anyway.

i adore Veilguard for everything that it is: a beautiful game with well-developed and multidimensional characters, rich environments, interesting quests and fun puzzles, and robust, deep lore that connects many elements of the already staggeringly-vibrant world that has been lovingly crafted by many hands for more than fifteen years.

at the same time, i cannot help but see places that cuts were made—expected answers that never came, pieces of a previous world state that should have influenced events and didn’t, cameos we hoped for and in some cases even reasonably expected that we never saw, and places where the lore we were given feels uncharacteristically thin.

we know the development process for this game was hell. we know that studio execs and higher ups cut and sidelined planned story in favor of prioritizing other things. can you imagine what that must have been like? the devs LOVE dragon age, many of them every bit as much as (or more than!!) many of us. i imagine they must have wanted to create a game we would love, and felt hindered in their ability to do so. and i imagine that some of them may have felt a bit trapped—either tell the story Their Way, or don’t tell it at all. can you imagine yourself in that position? what would you have chosen?

so when i have to choose between saving Minrathous or Treviso, knowing full well the consequences after a couple of play throughs, i think of the devs and them possibly being forced to choose between one piece of the story or another. when i have to choose between Davrin and Harding, i think of the devs being forced to choose what pieces of their characterizations they were going to fight for: Taash’s nonbinariness? Bellara’s neurodivergence? Something else that was cut that we never got to see, and now perhaps never will?

and when i walk through the Crossroads, all i can think of is the Vir Dirthara from Trespasser, the Shattered Library, and all the stories and knowledge that must have been lost from its shelves when the Veil came down, never to be told or learned again. but still, there are spirits, and these spirits keep those stories:

Welcome. Listen to the words of those who lived past the fall.

so i don’t know what comes next. no one does, no one can. but we’ve got one thing those spirits i don’t think have. we can make more stories. they are Knowledge, Study, but not Create.

we can be Create.

[hopeds]

rambling about ships/dynamics i yearn for while i sit in the car

peko/tenko:

saw a post in the tags saying how predespair tenko probably idolized peko and now i've just been thinking about them — especially in the sense of having adjacent enough interests but tenko encouraging girls to outwardly express their emotions while peko does the exact opposite. i think tenko would absolutely adore peko's fondness for cute animals and i think she would do wonders to help peko regain a sense of autonomy :')

gundam/mikan:

thinks about their drs interaction where he calls her the lamb and lets her hold the devas so she can be less anxious with animals...

idk if my thoughts are coherent at all about them but i just think they can be . so cute.

nagito/mikan:

but specifically ♠️ like they are in the trial for chapter 3

idk how much i ship it apart from that sort of dynamic because they're both such unstable individuals that i can't see much between them really being that healthy nor enjoyable tbh?

but them bitching each other out ohohhohoho

tenko/mikan:

i will talk about characters other than tenko and mikan i promise. but ohhh my god i think mikan would make tenko's protective instincts go HAYWIRE

and again with the expressing emotions thing like i briefly elucidated upon for peko and tenko but i think mikan has a lot of shame about her emotions and also isn't sure entirely how to express them normally (like when she randomly screams/yells or when she says really. weird shit out loud unprovoked) and i think tenko could do. so much for that

hiyoko/fuyuhiko:

another one of my dearly beloved ♠️ moments

idk how many thoughts i have about them offhandedly but i like them and i like them antagonizing each other

hiyoko/sonia:

this one is more platonic in my mind ( ... sighs.. ♦️) but i think they'd get along so well because of their mutual interest in horror/crime/occult etc

like yeah hiyoko canonically dislikes her but as much as hiyoko torments kazuichi i think she expected a pervy gross guy like him to give her all the attention (as per her track record with her fans unfortunately) so someone else getting that attention kinda. sets her off

BUT when she realizes that sonia didnt even really want kazuichi's crush on her to be a thing i can absolutely see her softening for sonia

especially because sonia was kind to hiyoko and shows a great deal of respect for traditional japanese culture, something very close to hiyoko's heart

hiyoko/kazuichi:

on that note...:)

not a ton of thoughts about them to prattle about right now to be honest but i have a soft spot for them and a soft spot for hiyoko antagonizing him

any combination of peko/maki/mukuro:

they're all similar personality - wise but i just think. idk. a lot of themes of dehumanization overlapping that makes me want to see them kiss

hajime+izuru/mikan:

sry combining them into one but. god the thoughts i have about hajime and mikan are unreal and i like them

even with hajime's self loathing for his lack of talent i still think he's stable enough all things considered to support mikan in a way she needs?

ugh when she mentions wanting to harm him so she'd need to take care of him and he just says she doesn't need to do that. emotional

chiaki/mikan:

i just feel like. i don't know i just feel like they can be so cute

gentle/soft spoken/kind person just the kinda person that mikan needs... and i think she could show her so many video games and it can something that is so sweet

mukuro/sayaka:

hmgmghmh ladies...

socially awkward x social butterfly like what if i cried.

also their drs interaction is SO cute and i just. weeps

mukuro/kyouko:

self sacrificial x unable to depend on others... oh they're foils your honor

i've mentioned this in ims before but omg drif/other adjacent scenario where kyouko notices something Off about disguised!mukuro and then they just. they're gay your honor

tenko/touko:

oh i just feel like tenko can get through to her. i just know she can. even if it takes ten million years

peko/fuyuhiko:

dare i say something controversial?

hm. well. ♠️

in the sense of like. fuyuhiko not wanting to be reliant on the kuzuryuu clan and peko being the embodiment of it because she's his Tool/object as per the clan. and i can just see it getting warped somewhere down the line and i'm so fascinated by that

also like. normal romantic stuff but that can also go without saying i feel

tenko/angie:

okay so. jealousy over himiko aside. i'm so intrigued by the idea of like. tenko confronting angie about hiding her emotions behind her religion in a sense — but i can also see it going in a ♠️ sort of way tbh

kaede/miu:

ohhhh how i love them so. not a lot of cohesive thoughts but i LOVE them so much

other:

nothing cohesive again but god am i a sucker for possessiveness/predator+prey dynamics teehee

also this isn't comprehensive! tbh i'll ship pretty much anything and i love writing ships, very rarely do i care about chemistry so you can just ask me

anyways if you're interested in writing any of these perhaps PLEASE hit my line or lmk in any capacity because i'm dying to tbh

[kobeniliker]

HI AGAIN THE NEW CHAPTER!!!!! 123!!!! CHAINSAW MAN. AUGH!H!!!!

Spoilers, rambling & analysis under the cut!!! Warnings for canon typical violence/death/unpleasant situations.

OK SO. 

I was wrong about this lady being the death devil!! 

 (I will probably be wrong about a lot of things lol, I just like to organize my thoughts. Might start making these posts w every chapter, idk!)

The falling devil!!! That makes a lot of sense!!! People falling to their death. I think her powers would tie into a fear of heights as well. But as I have seen some other people point out it also seems to tie into falling into depression or love, or really any vulnerable state. Which is pretty important considering Asa’s tendency to fall in critical moments. She in particular would probably be more afraid of this devil, which makes this confrontation very. difficult.

I LOVE her design. She seems so polite (aside from the murders and the whole being very evil devil thing)! A chef! She cooks!! She has a lot of arms!

Interestingly, she is very human looking. Remove some extra limbs and give her a neck, shes just a really tall chef. Cool, but. 

?????? (Image from Chainsaw man chapter 34, kishibe talking during Prinzi’s introduction)

Devils with human-like appearances are friendlier toward humans. Well, Prinzi and Angel weren’t too warm and fuzzy, but they didn’t kill humans that much. Angel even expressed some regret in doing so, and actively avoided touching humans to protect them.

The 3 horsemen we know of so far are interesting cases, because they look just like humans aside from the eyes. Yoru tries to get Asa to kill people and is the war devil, but she still tries to protect Asa and even seems to comfort her. She didn’t take over Asa’s entire body because she ‘doesn’t know enough about humans to blend in’. Why does she have to be a human, couldn’t she just use her bird form to spy? I dunno, but it’s been established that Yoru isn’t the smartest. Fami is still pretty mysterious, but she didn’t directly kill everyone inside the aquarium. She could have, but she made another devil do it for her. She offered to help Asa and Yuko, and she kind of did save Yuko from dying, at least immediately. She is cooperating with Yoshida’s interrogation. Makima seems pretty detached from everything and does not take issue with hurting humans for her own gain, but was very much able to maintain working relationships and live as a human without being found out as a devil.

The Falling Devil is pretty human-like, but she introduces herself as the Falling Devil and resumes killing and tormenting people with no regard for who sees her. She has a similar level of hostility to humans as, say, the bat devil. So far she seems to enjoy killing people. 

I think this is particularly interesting as she is the 2nd introduced primal fear devil. The darkness devil also looked pretty weird, but definitely had human physical traits. It basically is just a bunch of humans stacked on top of each other and a cool helmet and cape. The darkness devil also does not take any issue with killing or harming humans despite its humanlike appearance.

It’s just. An interesting pattern!!!!!

Another very interesting piece of dialogue:

Did someone send her? Who? Why? This implies some sort of organized society or system in hell that would allow devils to communicate to each other. It seems like they sent her as sort of representative? I have a lot of questions!

And Asa. Oh my god. I fucking cried. 

We have some more of her backstory which is nice, but. Holy Fuck.

She risked her LIFE to save that cat. That was the only remaining family she had. And she was willing to trust this person who promised that they could give her cat a better life, she chose her cat’s happiness over her own. And that trust was betrayed in the worst way possible, in the name of ‘fairness’.

This poor kid. I can’t. She lost everything and she blames herself for it. She believes she killed her mom, her cat died because of her misplaced trust, the one friend she made died trying to protect her from bullies (in a very twisted attempt, there are much better ways to deal with bullying, but I think Yuko genuinely cared about Asa).

We know she lives alone now, and knowing where she was before I’m glad for her. I assume that she left the orphanage sometime after this. But we know she’s never really been social, she’s introverted, she withdraws from others, which explains more about her tendencies to avoid social interactions and shut out everything around her. Unrelated, but I love her short hair and sweater.

I think this is also an interesting parallel to Denji. Denji, who never really had anything but still lost so much. He blames himself for the death of his father, of his friends and adoptive family. He really loved pochita, he gave him everything he could but still lost him. Denji who is loud and puts himself out there even when he really shouldn’t. Denji who isn’t very book smart but is friendly and loyal and social.

The cat/dog parallels. 

It is very, very interesting.

2 weeks till the next chapter!!! Might add more stuff as I think of it, but these are my initial thoughts for now :)

[dykeomania]

digital diary thanksgiving post because it's my account so it's my space and i'm gonna talk, okay to interact if you feel so inclined, so, for context, i'm not very close with my family and if we're being so honest i wouldn't really say i have much of one, anyway (my mom's around but we can get into the string of mommy issues on a different occasion), so, being home for me + the holidays in general naturally brings up a lot of emotions surrounding loss and grief and generally just feeling very far removed from any sense of normalcy that i think i had at some point in my lifetime but that i generally feel very detached from and that's something that i've really struggled with for quite some time now and i feel like i've been given more reasons to struggle with it over these past like, 4-5-6 years, consistently. (cont).

but while being home is a pretty activating experience it's also activating in the sense that it does give me an opportunity to reflect on everything that has changed for the better on my own accord and i think there's always room to be proud of myself in that sense. i tend to block out things that i just don't find to be productive or that are somewhat traumatizing so sometimes i forget my generational curses exist and i forget everything that my mom has done and said and i forget how much of the core values and sentiments of family that i just don't have and when i have to look them in the eye it's a little bit unearthing and honestly pretty fucking draining and tormenting. but it also reminds me of how far i've come and how much work i've successfully put in to make my life the way i want it to be and make the connections that i want and how if i just keep going, i could truly like, make more, just period-- i could make it all happen if i really wanted to. one thing that i can really pat myself on the back for is my personal commitment to self-evolution and how determined i've been to just make some shit shake, and it really has worked out and is actively working out and i see that, now more than ever. and while being home still brings up a lot of those gutting feelings that's very reminiscent of everything that i don't have, it's also very comforting in the sense that this is not. all. that i am capable of knowing. and that's just insane and important to me considering that idk when i was a teenager i remember feeling very suffocated by being home to the point where it was really dangerous and i thought for a long time that that was just going to be my life. and now i know that it's not and i know that no one has my back the way that i do, and it's crystal clear.

there's so many layers of nuance that come with being home i guess and there's a lot to peel back in terms of cycling through a bunch of poverty and abuse and domestic violence and narcissistic parenting and growing up with a chronically ill parent and god knows what else but i think the bottom line is like, i feel pretty close to the other side of it. and while being home is like insane and is a lot, on the flip side, that's a pretty good feeling.

[grandadtwelve]

how I think different pairings of nuwho companions would get on:

(not including characters who have already met in tv show canon)

engaged to be married:

jack + river: i mean come on. they’re obsessed w each other, they go shopping together, they commit crimes together, and they torment the doctor together

jack + clara: specifically jack and immortal!clara from post-s10. they’re not in like a committed romantic relationship, they just have an intensely romantic friendship, a lot of sex, got drunk married in space vegas, and then just never got a divorce

best friends, literally inseparable:

rose + donna: I KNOW donna would have rose in tears w laughter 24/7. they’d have so much fun and talk so much shit together and the doctor would never know peace again and okay: HEAR ME OUT. If rose fell in love w metacrisis!ten…. I think she also would’ve fallen in love w metacrisis!donna. That’s all

rose + bill: rose at 19 and bill at 19 would be besties, but bill would have a MASSIVE crush on s4 rose <3 they have a lot in common and rose finds bills awkwardness and sense of humor enormously endearing

jack + amy: oh god…. rip rory you will never recover from this

martha + rory: doctor friends!!! logic oriented people who are more aware of the damage the doctor is capable of than some of his other companions!! they get along great in literally every situation you could put them in

martha + clara: i don’t know why but I think they’d be kind of perfect? really good teamwork but also they’d just genuinely enjoy each other’s company. martha knows how to tell clara to chill out w out getting her mad and clara tells martha she can do better any times she mentions ten or mickey

martha + bill: pure vibes. they have a very similar response of bafflement to the doctors bullshit and I just think they would have a great time

river + clara: okay. personally i think mel and clara had a toxic homoerotic whirlwind friendship that ended in disaster and heartbreak and probably some jail time. post-s10 clara and river don’t exactly pick up where they left off but they definitely still adore each other and have a wonderful “human who has been made immortal/given an augmented lifespan by means of gallifreyan technology” trio with jack

river + bill: river is bills adoptive mother/grandmother. end of story. river adores her, is so proud of her, spoils her at every oportunity, and bill thinks she’s the coolest person she’s ever met and can’t believe she’s married to the doctor

casual friendship:

rose + martha: they’re friends! but they come from very different backgrounds and i don’t think they’d actually have much in common

rose + amy: again, they’d be friends but just wouldn’t end up hanging out much! they ALWAYS back each other up in arguments though

rose + rory: I think they’d both find each other really sweet! don’t really have any other thoughts abt them

jack + rory: jack flirts w him, rory pretends to be annoyed but it actually genuinely flattered

jack + bill: bill is entertained by him and they have some wlw/mlm solidarity moments but eh, they never get super close

donna + amy: would rly rly rly enjoy making fun of the doctor together. that’s it

donna + clara: clara would just sit back and watch donna tear into every villain/threat/etc they came across and find it extremely entertaining

donna + bill: they have not stopped laughing since they met

rory + clara: they’re both calmed by each other’s presence in the face of danger! rory knows clara has a plan, clara knows there’s someone around who’s better at making sure no one’s hurt or left behind

respect/functional but not close:

martha + river: they’d work well together if they needed to but they literally could not have less in common

donna + rory: eh! again, not much in common. very different energies

amy + clara: idk why but these two just don’t work well for me in my head? they don’t dislike each other but it’s just kinda like. Yeah ok

indifference:

martha + amy: I think martha would be a little irritated w amy’s lack of planning amidst crisis but otherwise they’d be like. Okay

outright dislike:

rose + clara: idk where to put these two cause: clara would drive s1 rose out of her mind w her control issues, rose with her possessiveness over the doctor, clara would get patronizing and rose would get immature. however s10 clara and s4 rose would be an INCREDIBLE team and it wouldn’t matter how they felt abt each other, they’d solve any and every problem you threw at them

donna + missy: the only reason no one’s dying is because missy finds her entertaining. the verbal sparring would be legendary but donna is way too moral and way too protective over the doctor to not absolutely hate missy

amy + missy: amy is used to rivers chaos so she’s not as stressed out by missy as other companions might be but um. Still definitely not a fan.

rory + missy: he wants absolutely nothing to do with her which includes getting close enough to kill or be killed

*mid fight* are we abt to kiss rn?: 

rose + river: good god can you imagine? i think rose would immediately go for how she acted w sarah jane and river would be flirty in a ?condescending way? but there’d be an underlying tension that everyone else would be terrified to point out

river + missy: enough said.

someone is getting murdered:

rose + missy: absolutely not

martha + missy: after what simm!master did? it’s on sight sorry

jack + missy: i want them to get along so bad but. same issue as the above unfortunately

[demadogs]

So it seems like everyone who has been vecna’d so far has a secret/thing they feel guilt and self-loathing over. (Chrissy bulimia, Fred the guy in the car, Max Billy, etc.) So thought experiment: who in our Scooby gang has something they’d feel GUILTY about? It doesn’t seem like to me it would be something we the audience have never been given any kind of clue over. So like I just can’t think of anything for say, Dustin - if he is harboring anything that serious, we have never been tipped off about it. Lucas either. Ericka no (not enough screen time to even say). Steve MAYBE Barb but he doesn’t seem to feel how Nancy does about that, and we already have it happening for Nancy anyway. So for me I am left with Will (ugh my poor gay son, and possible guilt about upside down connections), Mike (internalized homophobia/not being able to love El the way she wants him to? Something else? It’s so hard to know what’s going on in his head), El for her fear she’s just someone who hurts people etc etc, and Jonathan (his secret from Nancy, though it doesn’t seem quite that dire to me)…….that’s it? So 4 of them, excluding Nancy and Max who it’s already happening to. Agree? Disagree? Did I forget someone who would qualify based on what we know? (P.S. Robin also could have gay-related trauma ig but idk she seems the healthiest to me, like she is only worried about society’s perceptions rather than wrestling with accepting herself personally.)

i literally never realized chrissy’s was bulimia omg i thought she was throwing up from panicking after having a vision and her trauma was just an abusive mom wow that went right over my head.

anywho yeah i think the only other logical vecna subjects are will and mike because like you said theres not much trauma that we know of for anyone else, and i really think the audience would be aware of the trauma instead of just randomly revealing that one of them is severely suffering from something. the only way it could be something we “dont know” is mike if thats how they reveal hes gay but thats been implied so its not like that would come from no where.

i made this post talking about why i think mike is more likely be to vecna’d than will because most of wills trauma is upside down related and vecna seems to torment with more human trauma. he also tortures with guilt and shame. nancy and max both feel guilty for barb and billy and chrissy probably felt shame for her ed. i dont think will feels any shame or guilt for what he went through because its something that happened to him, not something that he did. he has severe ptsd but because he was a victim not because of guilt.

mike is completely different. he definitely feels guilt and shame from his internalized homophobia. he probably feels guilty that hes been lying to el and not breaking up with her and he feels ashamed that he loves will instead of her. hes a perfect target for vecna.

the only thing holding me back is the fact that finn said he only met jamie bower a couple times. but maybe he is cursed just not completely? like he has the visions but isnt actually greeted with vecna.

i hope its him instead of will because if its will its probably related to liking mike but we already know that. it would be so much better to make it mike. and i dont think will feels nearly as guilty for loving mike and being gay than mike does so it would make more sense.

it would be SUCH a great way to reveal it to the audience because to anybody whos like “what the hell this came outta nowhere” the vision could show flashbacks of all the moments that they missed. that unreciprocated kiss at the end of s3, “its not my fault you dont like girls”, soft moments with will like “crazy together” and the hand hold, will telling him that its scary to open up to people, not being able to tell el he loves her. it would really make them be like “oh holly shit” and they need that moment. god itd be so good i want it so bad.

[nomadicbeard]

Hi! I saw on one of your posts you said that you used to be a stucky shipper. I actually started off as a stony shipper but then absolutely fell in love with stucky but I like both . I was just wondering what made you "jump ship" on stucky lol. Sorry if this comes across as annoying or anything im just curious!

Hey! As you can see a couple of people have asked me this over the last couple of weeks and I’m really lazy and haven’t got around to responding yet, but the people deserve an answer so here we go. Before we start a quick disclaimer: I’ll only be talking about the ships themselves, not the communities or any of the discourse surrounding them. This is not a ship-bashing of any kind and please do not take it as such, it’s just my own personal experience surrounding these characters and these relationships. 

 Buckle your seatbelts kids, this is a long one.

I first got into Marvel c. 2015. I’m European so I’d never really watched any marvel movies before that, I watched Age of Ultron on a plane and remember being vaguely aware the Steve/Tony was a thing (what is pretty interesting is that to this day I have no clue where that knowledge came from) but was mostly just excited by the superhero stuff. I then got home and watched The Winter Soldier and fell in love. I love the Winter Soldier, it’s probably still one of my favourite marvel movies (it got kicked out of its top spot by Black Panther last year unfortunately) and to me no other marvel movie could hold a torch to it at the time. So I came onto tumblr, searched up The Winter Soldier and was just inundated with Stucky stuff, as expected. I rolled with it, got invested just from constant exposure (it was also around the height of the Stucky ship) and as far as I was concerned, that was that. I was super into Stucky for almost six months and was pretty much your average shipper, I didn’t understand stevetony, loved Steve Rogers, was close to creating a Stucky sideblog wit some ridiculous pun as my username, I was gone over this ship.

Then one day, I sat down and read the man on the bridge by boopboop on ao3. You’ve almost definitely heard of it, but it was the most popular fic in the Steve/Bucky tag on ao3 at the time (for some reason I had just never got around to reading it until then, it was long and I didn’t have the stamina I have now). It was your pretty standard Stucky fic, Steve gets Bucky back, they have to deal with his trauma which results in Steve and Bucky declaring their long lost love for each other etc. etc. What was different about this fic, was that it was all told from Tony’s point of view, and since Steve and Tony were on the same team at that point, their dynamic was a huge part of the fic. And I found myself falling completely in love with Steve and Tony’s dynamic. I went back to the fic for this post (and god it is a good fic) and pulled up the first couple of chapters and instantly just found so many instances of that dynamic

(grade A stevetony arguing over each other’s safety with a side of flirting from Tony)

(Idk why but the image of Steve and Tony not going to sleep, but rather staying up and brewing coffee together was such a vivid one when I first read this fic, I still remember it to this day. )

(Tony picking Steve flowers while trying to desperately play off that he didn’t aka. Tony caring while trying desperately not to care)

(Everyone knowing that Steve would definitely come to Tony, apart from Tony himself.)

Now obviously, this is a stucky fic and I went into it knowing this, but I found when Steve and Bucky finally got together I felt honestly a bit bored, a bit cheated. I had no idea why at the time. I remember very clearly x-ing out of the fic at the end and feeling really uneasy, I came onto tumblr, went straight back into the Stucky tag and all was well.

When I next went back onto ao3, I started out with a couple of oneshots in the Stucky tag, but for some reason it wasn’t working for me anymore. I remember sitting there, a little bored, not at all invested in this relationship and just missing something. I figured I was probably missing Tony’s presence in the fic and so filtered in Tony Stark’s character tag. I read a few of those and all was well but I realised the same thing was happening as had happened in man on the bridge, the moment that Steve and Bucky got together, the fic lost something for me. Desperate at this point, and a little annoyed at myself I conducted an experiment and went into the Steve/Tony tag on Ao3 and as they say, the rest is history. If you go onto older posts on my main blog there’s a pretty drastic, almost overnight shift c. January 2016. I have to admit, I expected Civil War to be a conversion so I enjoyed stevetony without consequence for five months, while still labelling myself as a Stucky shipper because I expected to be pulled back to Stucky after civil war, the reality was that somehow I came out of civil war shipping stevetony harder than ever before. From there, I spent two years reading my way through the stevetony tag on ao3 and finally set up this blog in 2018, with a really obscure reference as my username and it’s been stevetony til I die ever since.

I just couldn’t read Stucky anymore. That’s what I mean when I say on this blog that stevetony has ruined me for every other ship, because it has. Steve and Tony’s firecracker dynamic pulled me away from what was fast on its way to becoming my favourite ship in 2015, all because they had a bit of banter on the side in a fic. It’s kind of depressing really, the sort of hold that Steve and Tony’s dynamic has over me, 

It’s strange you say you fell in love with Stucky, I fell absolutely out of love with it. I have thought a lot about how I ended up falling into stevetony and why I was so drawn to them instead of Stucky in the first place and I think it all comes down the the story itself. To me, Steve and Bucky’s relationship carries much more weight as a friendship, I still have no doubt that Bucky is one of if not the most important person in Steve’s life, but having that be a lifelong friendship is way more powerful and impactful to me, (especially since what I know I misconstrued to be Steve’s obsession with Bucky is actually Steve’s obsession over the past. I’m not saying Bucky isn’t dear to Steve and he does want to obviously rescue him, but looking back on it there’s more to Steve’s obsession with Bucky than just love, it’s a fear of change and it’s him desperately trying to hold onto a past that’s gone.)

Conversely, I feel like adding a romantic element to Steve and Tony’s relationship enriches the story being told, if you look at something like civil war (either MCU or 616 tbh) in the context of Tony being desperately in love with Steve, it makes a lot more sense, especially with things like The Confession in 616 or the stuff brought up in that strange conversation in the conference room in the MCU. There’s lines from Steve like “I’m home/you gave me a home” or even straight up “he loved you” and his tormented behaviour throughout infinity war and endgame that just really makes you wonder, not to mention lines from others like “you two still gazing into each other’s eyes/sounds like both of you got into bed with the wrong people” and they did have to share a bed at Clint’s farm after all lol. The tragedy of their story is heightened if you look at it through the context of them being absolutely in love with each other, just never having actually got around to telling it to each other’s faces. This tragedy is heavily implied in The Oath/The Confession in 616 when they confess their deepest darkest secrets to the other’s comatose/dead bodies, and apparently it’s always been that they love the other person. Actually you could easily introduce a romantic element by making relatively few changes to the MCU, but that’s a post for another time (I have a long and comprehensive list in my notes app on how little you actually need to change to make that happen, it’s literally the matter of a few lines of dialogue and one major story change at the end of IM3, an interesting thought exercise to say the least).

Finally, there’s a quote that came up on my dash the day I made that fateful venture into the ao3 stevetony tag, “your soulmate isn’t someone who comes peacefully into your life. It is someone who makes you question things, changed your reality, somebody that marks a before and after in your life. It is not the human being everyone idealized, but an ordinary person, who managed to revolutionize your world in a second” to this day, it resonates so strongly with me about stevetony. It’s everything I love about this ship just compressed into a quote. 

So yeah it was basically a bunch of happy coincidences, but thank god it happened. As a writer, stevetony has taught me so much about character and dynamic, stuff that is honestly invaluable. When you have long fics that basically detail the day by day life of Steve and Tony post-civil war in rural Italy and consists of them sleeping, crying and working through their repressed feelings (looking at you @silkspectred ), it is the characters and their unique dynamic that drive the entirety of the story. Steve and Tony, in the hands of a compelling writer, can keep me hooked over a frankly embarrassing number of words. I still have a bit of a special place for Stucky in my heart really, it did start me out in marvel after all and it was one of my first ever ships, but your first love is only so good until you meet your true love, not to get all sappy but stevetony has completely destroyed my ability to ship anything else. I might get a bit flirtatious with some other ships, like sambucky (I still love Bucky, and I love Sam!), or the riverdale ships (beronica and jarchie or bust), or even the game of thrones crack ships (daensa til the day we die), but I’ll always come back to stevetony.

So yeah this escalated into a far longer post than I intended to make but I’ve never really spelled out on this blog how or why I ended up jumping Stucky to Stony when I know it’s usually the other way around. I guess it just comes down to stevetony catching me out when I least expected it, and never having let go of me since. 

[dracimexidae]

@lives-ruined-and-bloodshed replied to your post “@lives-ruined-and-bloodshed mentioned you on a post “You wanna try and...”

Yeah, I think May would definitely win in a real fight but I think they have so much fun just sparring, they know each other so well and probably sparred plenty of times so they know most of each other's moves and well, it's just really hot to imagine them going at it lol of course AoS couldn't give us that. We even saw Coulson fighting but ofc not with May, that would be giving too much to the shippers.

OF COURSE RIGHT, GOD FORBID THEY GIVE US EVEN JUST A FLICKER OF CONTENTMENT LMAO, WHO CARES ABOUT THE FANS ANYWAY... Sorry for the capslock, but I couldn’t express this any other way than shouting it because I’ll always be annoyed by this! Yeah, they don’t owe us anything, they should be able to tell the story they want without feeling obliged to indulge in the fan-service, bla bla bla, don’t care, I’ll stay pissed off, I’m sure the writers won’t mind, and at this point it’s the level of resigned annoyance that doesn’t ruin my day, so I can stay “fueled” without feeling miserable about it like I was some time ago, when I was more invested (not that I’m not invested in the ship now, but I made peace with the fact that I won’t get the satisfaction - and there is no “compliance” involved here :p - I need from the show so I’m looking for it elsewhere)!

I am convinced it would have been so amazing seeing Phil and Melinda spar because I found adorable (ok, maybe it’s not the best term to describe sparring sessions, but I have big family feels about it because Philindaisy obviously so for me that adjective stands) the sparring scenes Daisy had with both Phil and Melinda so yeah, it was a huge waste of potential, but what’s new when we talk about Philinda’s treatment in the show...

I do see their relationship as a bit unbalanced. There are so many times we saw May showing in words and actions what Coulson means to her, even her freaking robot was out there declaring her love and willing to die for him and the team. I think you're right that Coulson being the director is one of teh reasons for that difference but I think who they are is another.

For Coulson there is Humanity, SHIELD, Daisy and ofc May cares about that too but I mostly see her putting him ahead of pretty much everything, she's so ridiculously loyal to him, even Garret knew that about her, it wasn't follow SHIELD to the grave but Coulson. Watching gifsets of S1B was actually making me ship them less lol, he believed she was Hydra up until she was about to be killed too and then he was a raging dick, to hurt her, and not even an apology after.

Nothing much to add here, I agree with you, let me just underline the awful treatment Phil reserved to Melinda when he thought she was Hydra... All right, I get it, he must have felt overwhelmed discovering such huge betrayal from people in his organization to the point he felt he couldn’t be able to trust anyone, when he was raised in SHIELD with the “trust the system” drill in his head, valid for him until he died and was brought back, at least, not to mention the fact that he was kept in the shadows about this goddamn GH-325 secret by his closest (at least that’s what he thought she was) friend and ally, but just because he seemed to rely on Melinda so much that he decided to choose her as his “right-hand” for the task he accepted, I was flabbergasted that, after the first (comprehensible) moment of shock, he didn’t give her just a glimmer of benefit of the doubt, straight up assumed that she betrayed him and all... So was there nothing at all to be saved from their relationship until that moment that he could just pause just a second and consider that that was Melinda May he was crucifying, and I’m aware that it all happened so fast that there wasn’t a moment to breathe, let alone the chance of having a proper, lenghty conversation with her, but it took him too long, in my humble opinion, to realize that he couldn’t just throw whatever they had out of the window so rashly... Anyway, after the “epiphanic” Audrey episode the writers OBVIOUSLY never addressed the situation again, making us believe that between them it was all good again just by magic... mumble mumble... Thankfully there is fanfiction to fill in the gaps, because there is not a chance in the world I’ll be convinced that that evening, after Melinda brought Phil the infamous pendrive with the video about the TAHITI project, didn’t end up with them spending the night discussing everything and both apologizing AT LENGTH (in my universe there would have been also moments gradually and steadily reaching the R rating, but I would have been perfectly fine watching a scene with just them talking and making a real effort to clear things up and it would have actually made more sense considering canon, but they gave us nothing so whatever, I consider myself free to imagine whatever it pleases me :p )

I remember watching all of that some months ago and thinking he's going to to redeem himself by showing she the same kind of loyalty but then S2 and May was again with that massive devotion of hers, with the alien illness and the "real" SHIELD but what I got was Coulson lying to her repeatedly for no good reason. 3A was weird, I don't mind they had LIs, I actually really liked Andrew but they barely felt like friends imo. When Andrew/Lash was happening *Mack* was the only one who thought that maybe she could use a friend, that was bizarre. 

WHEN HE ASKED HER TO KILL HIM IF THINGS GOT OUT OF CONTROL (and just that, my god, I understand that he trusts only her with everything at this point, not only SHIELD but even his life, but it’s rather a terrible thing to ask anyway), AND SHE INSTEAD HAD ALREADY PLANNED TO SPEND THE REST OF THEIR LIFE IN A GODDAMN CABIN IN A PLACE SHE KNEW HE WANTED TO VISIT, DECIDING TO STAND BY HIS SIDE AND SUPPORT AND HELP HIM UNTIL THE VERY END... AND BY S5 SHE HELD UP TO HER WORD AND DID IT, EVEN IF IN A DIFFERENT PLACE... 

“NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU, THAT’S MY PLAN”  

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO DIG MYSELF A HOLE IN THE GARDEN AND CURL UP IN THERE FOR THE NEXT DECADE IF THAT ISN’T LOVE I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS??!?!!!!! That sentence and her actions show her love for him more powerfully than any “I love you” voiced out, but ok, let’s carry on...

I could even let the fact that he didn’t tell her about Theta Protocol slide because of all that classified crap and such, even if she called him out brilliantly about him not having the right to know that as well him not being Director anymore (HA, sorry Coulson but take that!) - I’m not really sure it was that a valid reason the fact that he should have told her because Andrew was involved, I mean, idk, they were not even married anymore, I don’t think that officially it should have been her business to know, but surely, as his best friend, Phil maybe should have felt more of a moral obligation to inform her, also because I can’t really recall if Phil started seeing Andrew before he confessed Melinda about his writing impulses, but at some point she knew, so what was the harm on letting her know? Where was the logic in keeping at least that hidden from her? I’ll be damned if I know! 

Anyway, what I seriously would have kicked Phil’s ass for is the fact that he, TWICE (as far as I remember at least) affirmed that he didn’t want to go to Melinda after the whole Andrew/Lash debacle because “she wouldn’t want me to go after her right now” “she’ll talk when she’s ready”... Phil... pal.... buddy... what the fuck???!!! I mean, ok, Melinda would have assured you that she was fine, especially if you approached her in public, but... you know... we know... THE WHOLE WORLD knows she wasn’t, how could she???!!! One fucking sentence, one “you know I’m here if you want to talk or anything” like she said to him, more than once, would have killed the writers to insert it?????!?!?!?! But no, not only he doesn’t reach to her (at least, we don’t see it and it isn’t even implied in the show)but in the meantime he proceedes to go out and have drinks and slEEP WITH ROSALIND AND START A RELATIONSHIP WITH HER WHAT THE HELL KINDA BEHAVIOUR IS THAT?????! His best friend is anguished, tormented and in pain, he should have at least stood by her bunk’s door all night just to reassure her he was there for whatever she needed, or at least stay at base, work, go to sleep, idk, with what spirit you go out and go on a date and everything???!! Why is that, to distract yourself?? Oh yeah, but he’s also working an angle here, yeah all work and duty and no play, eh, Coulson?! MELINDA NEEDED YOUR SUPPORT AND FRIENDSHIP FFS!!!!!!! Damn it, at least find time to show a scene in which he makes an effort to reach for her, then she is free to do anything she wants with his support and if she asks he’ll be considerate enough to leave her alone, but show us he tries, because that’s something I think Coulson would do!!!! Instead he apparently just straight up assumes that she doesn’t want anyone close in that moment so he doesn’t even bother to assure her that if she needs it, he’s there for her... I get it, we all know she closed off after Bahrain and all and she’s the kind of person who tends to keep things for herself, but it doesn’t hurt to at least let her know he’s available if she needs help, especially because she’d hate to bother him knowing well that he has a lot more to think about than just her? Listen, Coulson in certain instances could be a little dense, but I think he’d make such a reasoning, idk? Or am I assuming too much about him? But, as you said, even Mack voices his concerns about leaving her alone, someone who is not particularly close to her, but not Phil 

3B was better but still too little. It's funny but two of my favorites scenes of the show were the one about the boundaries, SO much to unpack there and when called him on it when he said she was too quick to the trigger and Daisy wasn't Andrew, the murder vest was bad enough but damn he still went the extra mile, but if he's going to be a bastard, at least have May fight back because I don't think I could take more of him being a dick and May just taking and getting no apologies like in 2B. 

Oh my god, OH MY GOD yes, that was the peak of the idiocy!! “You’re always so quick to the trigger” JESUS CHRIST PHIL HOW COULD YOU EVEN CONCEIVE TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO HER, TO MELINDA, HOW THE FUCK DOES YOUR BRAIN WORK????!!?!?!!? I seriously tend to erase all this stupidity in s3, I know it’s not fair to the show but I’m sorry, I really can’t stand that Phil could say shit like that to Melinda, I can barely recognize it as canon... Maybe it’s me who has created this version of Phil in my head that actually got things wrong about his character, maybe I’m misreading him and don’t really understand him fully (not that I have ever claimed that I do, anyway), because no matter how stressful this moment is for him and no matter how much pressure he is under, I can’t for the life of me accept that he would say those things and behave like that... S1 behaviour I understand even if it still pisses me off a bit but it’s definitely more comprehensible, but these aspects no, just no, no way... The writers kinda saved it with May taking no shit from him (thank god for that, at least) and him apologizing, even if that was still pretty mild according to me, but oh well, better than nothing at all I guess? Let’s try to convince ourselves of that...

S4 was kinda funny to me because they just turned it up to eleven but I appreciate we actually saw him showing love/devotion/loyalty, without S4 I don't think I could ship them as much and since S5 was also disappointing in my I need to believe Coulson loves her as much as she loves him thing there was little Philinda, but still we had May showing in actions and words her love for him and Coulson, well, I believe he loves her and I guess he kissed her, said he didn't want to leave her and invited her to spend a few days together before he died in front of her. Her SL in S6 was about how much she loved him but I knew that already lol and then emotional torture and death. 

Definitely, I seriously don’t know what happened during s4 writing that convinced the writers to suddenly push on the accelerator with their relationship, but I’m actually grateful (see? I can also say good things about them lol ), even if in terms of continuity for their dynamic I’m not sure how much sense it makes unless you take for granted that interactions must have happened in between the seasons, things we obviously weren’t witnesses of... As you pointed out, otherwise it would have been pretty hard to root for them to get closer, because May deserves the world!

It’s kind of ironic in a way to see, despite her being not openly vocal and expressive in her affections, how much more Melinda has said and done to and for Phil compared to him for her - again, as it has been said, he had far more things to worry about than her, whose mission was mainly Phil from the very beginning, so he obviously was more preoccupied to allow himself the luxury of devoting himself to just one person, but still...

S6? What is that? I really have no idea what you’re talking about here... :p

And that's why I appreciate so much how the fics do the work on Couson's part because I don't think I would love the ship as much without it either. And I just find confusing why AoS decided to go for the ship if they didn't care much about committing to their relationship on screen.

Yes! And ah, at this point, especially after S6, I’m so deflated about some choices that were made that I hardly care about trying to understand what goes through the writers’ heads, so again, I’ll just take what I want and run away quickly before they catch me and throw me in the pit of misery again (lol, look how confident I seem, as if I firmly believe that I won’t be affected at all by S7... Mh mh, yeah, sure, stay tuned to find out how much I’ll fail despite me training myself not to get involved with the show like I used to be...)