#it’s just straight up canon does this even count as shipping

[kojitheopossum]

SO SESSION FIVE. HUH .

[osterby]

So the flavour of the day is Bad Fandom Stats, and it turns out that not only is centreoftheselights using a wildly inaccurate method of counting ship popularity during a given year for the Year In Review fandom stats, but also that nearly every column on the chart is a lie. @5ummit exploded the whole methodology issue last year, so I'll just link their post and dive into other stuff.

One would think, looking at a list of popular ships with their fandoms listed next to them, that the named fandom is simply the one within which the ship exists.

The ship at the top of that list is "Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)" and the fandom is listed as "9-1-1 (TV)"; that's pretty straightforward, there's only the one TV show and those characters are from that show.

But then we get down to ships with characters that exist in multiple versions or subsections of a canon which have their own fandom tags on AO3, and things start getting janky

One of the first things I noticed was weird about this year's chart (aside from the numbers themselves being just straight up wrong) was that the fandom for Kirk/Spock was listed as "Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)", the AO3 tag for the reboot movies. That felt wrong, because while I know the reboot movies are big on AO3, most of the K/S stuff I've seen recently has either been expressly original cast or not specific to any one cast or iteration of canon.

I thought that the list might have been saying that Reboot Kirk/Spock alone was big enough to make the list while Generic and Original Kirk/Spock were separate fandoms that hadn't gotten onto the list. That would be absurd for new fic count, but there are stranger things on this list and the methodology favours newer ships, so I went digging.

A search for Kirk/Spock fic posted in 2024 and a glance at the sidebar gives us this, out of 2,255 total fics

Searching for Kirk/Spock fics updated, rather than newly posted, in 2024 also puts the All Media Types and Original Series tags above the Reboot Movies.

But searching the entire unfiltered ship tag gets us this, out of 22,426 fics

This means two things.

1.) Despite the listed fandom on the year end chart, Kirk/Spock (and by extension, all the other ships from fandoms with more than one iteration of canon [and some Batman ships are on there, so we've got far more complex things than simply reboot movies and TV/anime adaptions of novels/manga]) is a generic ship tag.

2.) the fandom listed was taken from the unfiltered tag, not from this year's data.

And centreoftheselights confirms that this is indeed her methodology.

The fandoms are, quite simply, wrong.

--

Since we do not have access to her data and her methods are not replicable, we can't check how many of the ships might have been struck with a mismatch between which version of their canon is most popular overall vs this year.

I can't even be certain that there is a mismatch for Kirk/Spock. It's possible that the fics that actually make up her numbers have more reboot movie fic than otherwise. No one will ever know.

--

It is interesting to dig into the differences. I find it utterly fascinating that Kirk/Spock had a period that pushed the reboot movies to the top of the list overall and has since settled into Original Cast being more popular, all while the ships remained consistently popular enough to regularily end up on Top Ship Lists.

Centreoftheselights' data does not allow us to dig into those differences, or even to meaningfully speculate about them.

--

And yet more! As I explained in this reblog, the "type" column is not harvested from the data itself, but is a subjective interpretation of what centreoftheselights believes the characters' genders is or could or might be. So not only are all the columns wrong, they aren't even wrong in the same ways.

Over the whole sheet, the columns are: ⚠️Rank: Well, it accurately lists the order of the inaccurate counts, so I guess the column technically isn't inaccurate ⚠️Change: This is indeed the change in rank from last year's chart. It accurately lists the difference between two different inaccurate ranks ✔️ Relationship: accurate! This is the ship tag on AO3 ❌ Fandom: Inaccurate. Actually a top tag within the ship tag, not the fandom the ship is from ❌Works Gained: Inaccurate. see @5ummit's debunk ✔️Total Works: accurate! this is indeed the size of the tag on AO3 ❌Type: Inaccurate. OP's best guess, subjective interpretation, or headcanon ❌Race: Inaccurate. Same as above.

--

Tagging @olderthannetfic and @5ummit since you two have kind of been doing the heavy lifting on this one :)

Also plugging the more accurate chart by Randomist1031, which, in addition to having accurate fic counts, also lists fandoms by generic names rather than top tag, which increaes both accuracy and readability. https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/158271001

[serpentthecrow]

Sleepy time with the grishaverse characters

A/n: I... Don't even... Sorry about that. My executive dysfunction did its magic. But here you have this as a peace offering since you guys liked the crows one. I can't even believe how long it's been. I'm probably not going to keep writing too many fics, if any at all. But this one's mandatory. And short.

Summary: headcannons on the sleeping habits of (some of) the grishaverse characters.

Alina Starkov

Hear me out

The girl's out like a light

Exactly the type of person to roll around the bed, end up in peculiar positions, and mainly, accidentally slap you or kick you in her sleep

Isn't picky, but if she COULD choose- only the softest mattress, duvet and pillows

She's petty like that

Has absolutely no night routine. Like. NONE.

Owns no pajamas. Just normal clothes passing as sleep clothes.

Gonna use her sun summoner powers when getting up in the middle of the night to fetch water etc., only to curse profusely because ✨light sensitivity✨

Midnight snacks. No elaboration is needed.

Definitely owns a stag plushie. Cause poor thing.

Mal Oretsev

Sleeps like he's in a coffin

No honestly. Like, on his back, straight as a plank. Psychopath.

The nightmares tho.

The biggest duvet stealer

Never actually uses the duvet tho. Kicks it away every time

Can barely be bothered to change

Absolutely cannot be bothered to make the bed

Hasn't got a single idea how to put on a bedsheet

Red flag: eats in bed too often

Occasionally has a dream about Nikolai throwing him overboard Volkvolny and grinning down at him, saints know why.

Would fall asleep under any circumstance. Light, loud sounds, anything. Bang two pans repeatedly next to his head, and the guy will still fall asleep if he's sure he can afford to.

Has a phoenix plushie. Pun intended.

Aleksander Morozova

does this guy even sleep? Questionable.

But in case he does:

A side sleeper

Surprisingly heavy sleeper

Rarely sleeps in bed when unsupervised tho. Not uncommon for him to fall asleep in a chair.

Black silk sheets only.

Talks in his sleep

Seriously.

If someone walked in on him sleeping, he'd be long since executed for treason.

Absolutely unaffected by caffeine

Produces a whole lotta shadows before going to sleep, roused by the slightest amount of light.

The extensive night routine is canon.

Doesn't have a plushie. The only one in this hc series btw.

Nikolai Lantsov

my favorite sailor bo- anyway

(Let's ignore Volkralai for the purpose of these hc's)

A stomach sleeper. We stan.

A pillow hugger. We stan.

Mostly blue bedding, especially in the palace or the spinning wheel, since we all know he misses the sea.

Another one with a whole-ass night routine.

Reduced amount of clothes when sleeping- usually just pants

They're pajama pants tho

Has some trouble falling asleep on land, he's used to the rocking of the ship

nap king, especially as Sturmhond

Reads a LOT before bed

A night owl- has to be reminded to got to sleep

Sometimes starts to rant about some invention of his

C A N N O T fall asleep without cuddles. Like, he's physically unable

The biggest manchild about waking up early.

Has a fox plushie. A fact.

Genya Safin

babygirl has nightmares, okay? Gotta start with that.

lowkey got accustomed to some level of luxury in Os Alta

not the biggest fan of cuddling. For understandable reasons

a warm beverage before bed

fuzzy socks

tries to maintain an exact time to go to sleep but ultimately fails because she's got trouble falling asleep

probably improves on her sleeping habits once she becomes a part of the triumvirateonly cause she has to tho

overthinking before sleep queen

does she have a plushie? Does David count? You tell me.

[harmonic-intervention]

You're killing me with chemistry - Chapter 2

Buck knows he’s bi. He knows what he wants. And what he wants, right now, is Tommy. Maybe his hand in marriage, because he’s getting desperate. Because, despite all of his attempts, and all of the positive responses from Tommy, for some reason, Tommy just … doesn’t act on anything.

Tommy knows Evan is straight. He asked both Howie and Hen about it, and he trusts their word on it. It doesn’t stop Evan from pulling him in, and making him fall head over heels for him anyway. Tommy knows better than to fall for a straight guy, he does, but … he can’t change it.

Everything would be easier if they just talked to each other, but where’s the fun in that?

Round 2 of the story based off on this post by @disaster-j After this, we have one more chapter, so I hope you'll like it.

Word count: 11,784 - canon divergence, bi disaster!buck & oblivious!tommy, sexual tension, bit more angst than the first round

Excerpt:

Tommy was in hell.

No other way to put it. He was in hell, and he couldn’t even really blame anyone, because he really should have known better and yet, here he was.

Evan Buckley. Simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to Tommy. It was the sweetest kind of torture, and Tommy didn’t put an end to it. He could. He couldn’t.

It normally took more for Tommy to find interest in someone. He was a guarded person, cautious. But from the first time they met, Tommy already knew that things were different.

When they got introduced to each other, Evan smiled so brightly it almost blinded Tommy for a moment. He was immediately taken by that gorgeous smile, by those big, sky-blue eyes. By the way that Evan practically fell into Howie’s words, cutting the intended introduction off with, “Evan, Evan Buckley,” as he held his hand out for Tommy to shake.

Tommy couldn’t be distracted that night, so he pushed all thoughts of Evan’s strong grip or pretty face away, spent the night tensed up and trying not to let the others notice how close they actually came to dying several times.

He felt horrible when he had to call it, like he had failed them all. But he really brought it down to the last second, and if they wanted to make it back to shore in one piece, they had to go. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach because he couldn’t deliver what Howie had asked of him, and because he knew once he was back on Californian soil, he’d be out of a job.

He’d risked it all. He’d lied to the fire chief. For nothing.

Only, by some miracle, a flash of red and Evan’s voice brought Tommy out of the downwards spiral of worries for his future before he could even start, and then he was immediately back in professional mode to call the discovery in. And then, they were there, ready to start the rescue before backup arrived.

Tommy had to bring out his best piloting to date, because despite all of the things he’d done, all the maneuvers he’d successfully executed, they were nothing on landing a helicopter on the slippery underside of a capsized cruise ship while it was being pelted by intermittent showers.

He made it. Despite the adrenaline rushing through him, despite his pulse fluttering like a bird under his skin, his hands were steady. There was not a single shake, not a single shiver. They had too much to lose, and Tommy had always been calm under pressure.

Only once they made their last flight to bring Tommy’s former captain and a missing child to safety and Tommy climbed out of the chopper did he allow himself to feel the emotional turmoil of the last couple of hours. His knees shook as he made his way down.

A bit of the residual fear left him as he watched Bobby reunite with his wife. And then, there was a hand on his shoulder, and he turned his head to find Evan there, the start of a smile pulling on his mouth. Tommy couldn’t help the answering grin.

[continue on ao3]

[jazzyblusnowflake]

OMG hi…I really like your art and was wondering if you wanna be mutuals??????????? Also tell me about your MD ships :3c

honey we are dating- .....okay yknow what- HI PRETTY & TALENTED LADY- yess i will absolutely love toooo 🙈💕💕💕💕💕

also lets see uhhh okay this is an excuse for me to just... expload-

keep in mind not every ship is meant for all of you so dont badger me about stuff that ISNT CANON or YOU DONT SHIP. contrary to whatever you believe, when somone posts about THEIR ships, nobody wants to hear about you NOT shipping it on THAT EXACT post.

hang in there, this gon be a long one >:p

First off we are starting strong with Nuzi- Biscuitbites obviously thats a given- these two just have too much to be said about why and how they make eachother the best version of eachother, whether they ever became canon or not- they fit like puzzle pieces- they lessen eachothers negative traits by being their for eachother.

next is Vuzi- Violentviolet, they are my favorite kind of enemies to lovers 😔 but its also tragic smh. kinda pissed off at how V always does something good in Uzis favor only when she is LITERALLY PASSED OUT- either in the camp ep on the bus or in Alices lab. like damn ofFUCKINGcourse Uzi wouldnt know she cares about her 😭😭😭

envuzi- Violentbitingbiscuits, i love these goobers with all my heart- they deserve the best 😔💕💕💕💕

envy - [does this poor ship just NOT have an exclusive FINDABLE tag name??? im calling them GoldenMemories...], i like to think that if they were in the manor still, and nothing bad had ever happened, these two would be comforting eachother in the healthiest way possible. V needs someone like N and N is just adorable like that uwu

Next we have JxTessa/Jessa- [calling them Fancyblades cuz why not-] J deserves some closure for the shit shes gone through smhhh 😔, its a tragic yuri of J loving and wanting something she probably already accepted she couldnt have, and even then she gotta deal with Ns ass being the favorite one regardless of how hard she tries to be perfect... sighhh i wanna imagine them in a future where Tessa was spared as the only human and J could save her 😭😭😭😭 Tessa might have loved doing mechanical stuff or wore black to hide grease/oil stains on her clothes from her parents and wore gloves to hide her oily stained hands- i want her to have a scene of wiring drones back to life and saving them and saying something like "hey there, you made it! dont worry, ill take care of you, youre my friend now :3" or something //dies//, also before anyone says it- even if Tessa was a teen in the flashbacks- romance is not exclusive to ADULTS, teens can love eachother without having sexual stuff involved. no she was not their MOTHER figure, she was their FRIEND who liked to fix robots for herself to not be alone in a house where her own parents literally chain her up as punishment. i dont even know why im arguing about this, people headcanon or make aus about characters NOT being dead all the time and if Tessa was alive for as long as J thought she was, Tessa would have been a perfectly fine adult either way. so counting this, yes shes canonically considered an adult when Cyn tries to imitate an adult humans body 🙄 makes as much sense as everything else i guess-

next ones i got is NorixYeva/Neva- Solverlilies- i just think theyre neat 😭😭😭 and once again, like everything else in this franchise- they are tragic yuris 😔 damn liam im finding a pattern over here 🤨 anyway, i like to think they either got closer in the lab experimentations or were already close when they were working as WDs in the campsite area for the humans. obviously canonically they were probably straight or just not into eachother romantically- [Nori either u have the worst taste men or Khan just fucking lost it after you died-] but also on the other handddd.... they have 2 hands and they are robots, i want them to kiss like two barbie dolls and im gonna make them do just that-

DollxLizzy/Dizzy- Bloodypink, wost fucking ship names ever, i cant find shit on them with these tags and it makes me angry >:/ at this point 2/3s of my ships are just tragic yuris smh, Doll did not deserve any of the things handed to her, even if she went about doing some things the wrong way i wish Lizzy didnt just abandon her- but then again, Doll did kinda abuse Lizzys trust and Lizzy got scared of being close to a serial murderer so.... morality calls this a draw? 😭 im crying... i wish someone was there to help Doll... sigh... i like to think Lizzy would have waited for Doll to just come back at some point... oh well, thats why AUs exist :"3 //sobs in the corner//

DollxUzi/Dollzi- Bloodybats, this ship is so underrated to me... they could have been... so much more. but why weren't they? did Yeva abandon ever getting close to Uzi when she was a kid after Nori died? did Uzi and Doll just never play around together as kids when their mothers were so close? were they ever close and something went wrong as they grew older? at worst they could have been like sisters together, and at best maybe more than friends. i just dont know what happened here, like Yeva could have tried to keep an eye on Uzi, maybe Uzi could have found Dolls powers so cool before having them too- i dont know theres literally tons of possibilities- but if Doll deserved to be saved or cared for by anyone, at least one of them should have been Uzi... sigh.

ThadxV- Killingblonde, yall this is... the cutest shit... ever???? like from here on out we kinda go into the more or less crackship territory but these two are adorable- Dumbass yet wholesome jock boy that just wants to keep his queen happy 😔👌👌👌 He and Uzi would have so much to talk about on "crushing on literal murder bots that stabbed and almost ate us" its literally love at first stab smhhh 😫💕

ThadxSam- Smokyjock ???? for some fucking reason??? i dont know what my brain did here man- i just like the trope of someone getting under Thads skin- like pair up the healthy sports loving gym boy with the lazy but wholesome dumbass that does drugs or is always just sleep deprived and Thad is always trying to just... take care of his ass and make him take care of himself but he just WONT SMHHH-

okay some more or less crack ships down here:

ThadxN: it speaks for itself. its too adorable and youll go blind from the light of wholesomeness-

ThadxNxUzi: Uzi will die here from the overwhelming wholesomeness... oh bonus if its just a 4s polycule of ThadxNxUzixV i mean i know im pushing my luck but.... random crackships go brr- V and Uzi will complain but love their dumbass golden puppy partners-

ThadxUzi: i think they could have been close and Thad caring about her as a childhood friend turned crush sounds just too cute for me 😔

LizzyxUzi: another random ass rivals to lovers or some shit idk what this is, Lizzy would pay Uzi to kiss the fuck out of her i dont make the rules-

ThadxLizzy: in some cases where they are NOT headcanoned as siblings or cousins, i think they have a good energy of wholesome jock bf and girly queen cheerleader lol, Thad is just a good bf eitherway-

DollxUzixLizzy: the gals would not leave a single second of silence for the small gremlin i swear to God- [Uzi is gay as FUCK for her gfs, absolute girloser unit with her gorgeous but crazy gfs]

okay for the end i have some characters that arent ships but i wish they could have become closer as friends or work out their issues...

J and N- too much abuse and toxicity here, i wish they could talk together more and see they have a lot of things in common- maybe a full line of dialogue from J without threatning N in every sense of the manner would be nice for a change =_=

Doll and V- again, a bit morally ambiguous to ship a character with the murderer of your family, esp when said murderer hasnt expressed regret lmao, but i wish they could at least be friends... Dolls disdain for the murder drones pushed her to end up the way she did. maybe if she didnt do it alone she would have been alive by now. so i like to think what would have happened if she and V could have made up- not necessarily Doll forgiving her- but at least having the space to grow and understand why they did they things that happened.

Cyn and literally ANYONE- i want the solver to be SEPARATE from Cyn- i wish Cyn would have still existed somewhere down there and was savable- i wish this poor child AI had a happy ending to her by connecting with the others as ACTUAL siblings... goddamnit 😔

aaaand thats it for this fine ass day 🫡 yall are welcome to ask about any of these- boy the tags are gonna be.... a lot.

[amarylliasky]

And Number 5 is another au! I have too many in my drafts…

Cat Tribe KRS!

- He wakes up as the older brother of On and Hong. He doesn’t have any abilities like they do btw. He was always weak, that’s why he was looked down upon by the tribe. Looks the same as Hong except for his reddish brown eyes and longer hair. He is 4 years older than them so that would make him 14 at the start of TCF, which is canon to him and Cale’s age difference.

- He grows up isolated, and looked down upon, in addition to almost starving due to the mistreatment of the tribe after his father is killed. Their father is killed shortly after On and Hong are born. So it is up to KRS to take care of his younger siblings.

- Idk what his name’s gonna be. Probably Arren or something like that.

- When they escape from the cat tribe, he is 12 while On and Hong are 8 and 5 respectively. They stow away on ships and merchant carriages until they reach the Henituse territory, where they spend the next year or so until they meet ogCale.

- Cale meets KRS after seeing him be surrounded by gangsters in the street while out drinking.

- KRS was trying to buy some food and medicine for his sick siblings when these random hooligans started pestering him. Now they won’t let him go and he’s gotta try to find a way to escape without transforming. He really doesn’t have time for this….

- Insert Trash! A bottle comes flying out of nowhere and hits a gangster straight in the face! Many more bottles follow. Just who carries around so many wine bottles…?

- As KRS stares incredulously at this random kid (he’s 18, but ok..), said kid lets out a barrage of swears and the gangsters hurry off, leaving behind a very confused cat child. Also, said kid is very obviously the notorious Trash of the Count’s family. Great.

- Cale decides bring Krs with him, seeing how malnourished he is, but the child refuses to come along without his siblings. Thus, Cale brings home three cat tribe children. He makes sure to get the younger ones treated properly as well.

- The young master makes a deal with krs. The children would stay at the Henituse estate until they are well, and Krs would do various chores to pay them back (Rok Soo is someone who believes in paying for his meals. He’s no freeloader). He meets the scary butler and chef duo, who quickly find out what they are. After teasing the oldest child, Ron decides to keep an eye on them. He wouldn’t want any harm to come to his employers, after all. Even if his puppy young master was the one to bring home these strays.

- During this time, Krs slowly gathers food for the indestructible shield. While he does that, along with his chores, the younger two are aquatinted with Basen and Lily, quickly becoming friends with the younger.

- Cale keeps up his act of trash, but never around the children. After all, children should not have to see such things. Cale finds out they are cat tribe children after witnessing Krs turning into a cat in order to sneak out of the estate.

- In any case, Cale plans to keep these children safe. They’re his responsibility now, no matter how ridiculously mature the eldest among them is. And the fact that they’re Cat Beast Tribesmen makes no difference.

[sl-walker]

Booster's Queer af

Something I wrote on Reddit on a thread asking 'what's your DC hot take??', because if you're gonna kick a hornet's nest, kick it with your best steel-toed boots and then smile:

Booster's queer. That man hasn't come across as straight-- ever. Like even when I started reading DC in 2003, he came across as queer to me, pretty much from his inception. Seriously. He comes across like someone closeted and decidedly not-straight who just stays in the closet initially because it was a very bad time to be anything other than heterosexual when he landed in the past and later because it's habit and expected of him. I don't think he's gay, I think he probably leans pretty pansexual or maybe even demisexual, but any which way, you'll never convince me he's not at least a little bit queer. He's had one in-universe romance that hasn't been retconned (Firehawk) in his entire time existing and one that was a joke and maybe not even real canon (Gladys). After almost four decades. His thing with Firehawk lasted, I think, like less than a year, too. I'm pretty sure you can count his on-panel kisses on one hand, but not more than two. He's never had a 'morning after' scene. The one seriously emotionally intimate relationship he has is with another guy. When he does flirt or attempt to, it comes off as being awkward and a bit desperate and a bit like a man who is kinda using it as cover. And like-- that really makes way more sense for him than anything otherwise. I'd sincerely hope by the 25th century that we'd stop giving a damn who loves or wants whomever else based on gender presentation. It also makes for a pretty compelling tale, a guy getting dropped into the middle of the AIDS epidemic learning a very quick and ugly lesson about what happens to queer folk in this time period. I dunno how hot a take this is, though, because at least some people up top agree (he's canonically hooked up with Ted in Teen Titans Go! and like-- any time Tom Taylor writes them, he all but says it aloud), but if TPTB were brave, they'd finally confirm it mainline. Like you don't even have to ship him with Ted (though that's my preference), just confirm he's queer. Here's my essay. What's my grade? LOL!

--

Since it's relevant, tho, here's a few pieces I wrote from a long email back and forth (since us old people still do that) with another very long-time fan of his a couple weeks ago:

But anyway, to me, he acts about like how a kid who got dropped into the 80s during the height of the AIDS panic and rampant homophobia and the wholesale death of gay men might, especially if he were queer himself. I'd probably try to straight-wash myself, too, in his boots. (I remember that time period, if distantly. I didn't realize I was queer myself until I was well into my 20s, despite falling in very desperate and intense love with another girl when I was 12. I do remember being in high school when a boy was murdered for being queer by being tortured and left tied to a fence to die, though. It was that kind of world back then for people like us. In some places, it still is.) Still, where Booster fails at any hetero romance (oh god does he), he's so devoted to Ted that a big part of his second solo was dedicated to him either trying to save the man or actively mourning him. It's heartbreaking and amazing and really actually quite good stuff, from a literary POV. Whether DC meant it or not, somehow they managed to write one of the greatest love stories I've ever seen in a comic across most of twenty years, no kidding, and I've read a lot across a lot of companies, even back when I was a twelve year old girl and ridiculed for it. And not just a great queer love story, it's a great love story period. A person can make a credible argument for it being a one-sided -- romantic and therefore non-platonic -- love, but it's pretty hard to argue it's not a very intense one regardless.

And

I guess what I'm trying to say is: This is another read on him. And I think also a very valid one. He's one hell of an amazing character, I wish DC had handled him half as well post-Flashpoint than they did pre-Flashpoint, and I don't think a queer reading of him detracts anything from how amazing he is. If anything, I think it makes the older stuff several shades deeper (and so, so relatable, god), and I think if they decided to write him as explicitly queer now, not too many people would actually be all that surprised. With or without Ted. I can't really identify with Alan Scott, love him though I do, even though I can acknowledge that a generation of gay men likely could quite strongly. But I can identify with Booster Gold, who grew up poor and wrecked his future in part for love of family, who clawed his way out of poverty and fell back into it, who has brilliant and shining moments of courage and heart, and moments where he lands on his face, who was tough enough to survive a lot of shit but devastatingly vulnerable to exploitation, and who looks like a fellow queer kid who might've fallen for his best friend, but was surrounded by homophobia and hate and terror and buried that part of himself because the alternative might have been getting beaten and left tied to a fence to die.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Propaganda:

For Orufrey: "They're tragic wlw who have devoted their lives to each other since they were kids. They live together, they cook together, they're raising four girls together and they're doing the best they can. Olruggio would do anything for Qifrey if Qifrey would just Let Him 😭 but Qifrey is dead-set on protecting Olruggio and keeping him safe and in the dark no matter what it costs... i cant 😭..."

"Man I don't know they just have the vibes. They have toxic yuri energy but they are two grown men. They've known each other since their apprentice days and have stuck together ever since. Qifrey's main magic type was something he took up because Olruggio proposed that he learned to control the water he feared. They live together away from most of society with Qifrey's four apprentices, living the sapphic cottagecore (ateliercore???) dream. Qifrey, due to the fact that his eyesight is very much failing, something which is very problematic when it comes to witches, who need their eyesight more than most, is getting very desperate to get all he lost to the Brimhats, the witches who took one of his eyes and his memories, and Olruggio ends up noticing this pursuit and is implied to have done this more than once. Qifrey does not want Olruggio to know about both his failing eyesight and his goals, so he ends up completely wiping Olruggio's memory of those things, and laments that Olruggio is a kind person, and one who would most likely forgive him again, but also one who would try to save him, even when he didn't want to be saved. He also apologized right up until the moment Olruggio's memories of his secret were gone. In general I think chapter 40 is the somewhat toxic guy yuri chapter ever. I'm very tired so I do not know how to explain any of this, I just thought "wow Orufrey reminds me of this one poll I saw on Tumblr" and then spent three days straight hunting for your blog before completely forgetting my reasoning for Orufrey being yuri right before I submitted this."

For Joongdok: "Well first of all Yoo Joonghyuk has a whole arc that is transfem coded as hell (has a power/technique that can technically only be used by women but somehow he can also use it, for a time he even turns into a woman to wield it and it's. Actually just let me get the quote "The ines of the face had changed but it was clearly Yoo Joonghyuk. No, it was even more than before.") that just kinda happens,, and doesn't get brought up again but anyway. Second of all just look at them. You see the vision. Also a bonus observation is that these two often get shipped in a poly ship with Han Sooyoung and whenever I see people make a "regular couple, yaoi couple, yuri couple, I see no difference love is love" meme with them the combination of which pair among these three is which of the categories is always different"

Note: This submission also mentions Han Sooyoung, but I decided to count this polyship submission as guy yuri as well.

"They love each other, they pretend they don't care for each other but all their actions prove they care too much, if you remove someone from the trio then the resulting duo is extremely dysfunctional, as evidenced by more than a million words of canon. Is it technically guy yuri? Well, Han Sooyoung is a woman, but in a way she's one of the guys. Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk are men, but the text heavily hints that Yoo Joonghyuk is a trans woman who's just too busy and stressed out to transition yet, and Kim Dokja has just never thought about his own gender a single day in his life. They made the world for each other, they went back in time countless times and waged countless wars for each other, they wrote and read and lived a story, their story, for each other and that's what saved them all. The way Han Sooyoung writes Yoo Joonghyuk's story to save Kim Dokja and loses herself in the process, the way Yoo Joonghyuk voluntarily lives the story to the point of losing himself too and even forgetting why he originally decided to do it, the way Kim Dokja read Han Sooyoung's story which was Yoo Joonghyuk's life and that's how he found himself, they all took so much from each other and gave so much of themselves to each other, this is all very yuri."

"they're so yuri you have no idea. they have every staple of a yuri ship. unwavering devotion. waiting dozens or thousands of years for each other. dooming themselves and the world for each other. so much yearning. i also see them genderbent a lot (including inn canon in the case of yjh) and they're right both of these people are women. i genuinely can't even see them strictly as men at this point they're just yjh and kdj and they are yuri do you understand."

"they're so yuri. the abscense of yuri is the presence of yuri etc etc. these two guys are all ABOUT abscenses. also one of them is a part time woman. the other guy is a guy but like in the same way a square is a rectangle. anyway they're so guyyuri to me. bonus points also because they have a mutual girlfriend and when she's present they're girlyaoi but that's not relevant to this specifically"

[voxofthevoid]

relate to being turned off from satosugu bc of the fandom. especially being on twitter makes me feel crazy omg bc i'll see posts where people are straight up acting like gojo was completely fine with what geto did bc gojo is just oh so down bad for him and loves him more than anyone else in the world and he doesnt care about anything he just wants geto back. and that is just. so untrue and also so boring, imo.

Because to me, gojo truly *is* a good person in his actions. he says crass things and maybe his mentality can be detached at times, but he always helps people where it counts. Even when he was taking Riko's body away and he asked geto if he should just kill the cult members and geto said no- I have a hard time picturing gojo actually going through with it even if geto *had* said yes. Because for all that gojo postures, I don't think he truly has that kind of bloodlust and rage in him, imo. Not even saying that I think killing those cult members would've been bad, or that Gojo would never ever kill anybody (simply not true), I just simply don't think gojo wouldve stopped walking, turned around, and killed allll those people in that instance (or if he did, I think he wouldve felt,,, off about it afterwards, despite what he said).

But I see so many stsg shippers who act like the only reason gojo was heartbroken about the situation was just because geto left him, and not bc, yaknow, geto committed reprehensible atrocities and became a supremacist. and i'm like,,, are we watching the same show? it's truly such a BAFFLING perspective of the relationship to me. like why erase their moral differences ? doesn't that make the ship more interesting? Sometimes I feel like the reason they do that is bc they can't handle the fact that Geto post-defection is seriously NOT a good person. at all.

stsg as a ship could be sooo much more interesting, imo, if people didn't erase the fact that geto BETRAYED gojo with what he did. not just the leaving. the village massacre, the parricide, the fact that he had no shame about it and stuck by his actions. all of those things betrayed gojo. bc i think gojo truly does want to help people, and he thought that, no matter how hard it was, he would always have geto along with him to do it, and that would make the pressure easier. instead geto chose to become one of the people that makes gojos job harder, lmao.

i think if shippers actually acknowledged that fact the ship wouldn't feel so fucking boring to me.

I’d save you from Twitter if I could, friend. Not saying other sites are free of harebrained idiots. I have Getou and satosugu blocked here for a reason, and I’ve seen screenshots of rancid fucking takes from TikTok and Instagram. Even Reddit—and I’m talking about canon discussion subreddits that generally ban ship talk—didn’t spare me from having to see people’s most reductive takes on this ship. But Twitter in particular seems to be where brain cells go to die.

Nothing in the world can make satosugu compelling to me, but objectively, it’s a ship with rich potential—for angst, for drama, for fluff, for toxicity, for love, for hate, for all of it combined. Like you’ve said, one of the most interesting facets of their relationship is how their bond culminates in betrayal. I’m personally quite interested in the fact that Gojou killed Getou despite loving him, after sparing him for eleven years because of the very same love. It’s not like Getou was ever harmless—he was a special-grade curse user, not the kind of threat you want running around. His cult activities and killings weren’t exactly subtle either. That angle—the fact that love makes Gojou turn a blind eye to Getou’s actions until he crosses a line even Gojou can’t abide—is very, very interesting to me as someone quite obsessed with Gojou’s characterization. People who have an equivalent interest in Getou would find plenty there to peel apart, probably. The two of them together would also offer rich, nuanced grounds for exploration, and I’m sure there are people doing just that.

But fandom spaces as a whole have become exceptionally sanitized recently. I’m not talking about people who generally simply prefer fluff and write that regardless of canon dynamics; there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re all allowed our self-indulgent tastes. But what you’ve described—a tendency to erase characters’ dark or grey morality, to think along black-and-white lines that put people into neat little boxes, to remove unsavory or unhealthy elements from relationships—has been plaguing fandoms more and more, especially fandoms with a large number of young(er) fans. JJK is definitely one of those.

I’ve seen similar takes on a lot of JJK ships as well as platonic relationships, like goyuu shippers asking why fic authors write Gojou as predatory toward Yuuji in canon settings with their canon ages (yeah, a real mystery why a 28 y/o romancing/fucking a 15 y/o would be written as predatory) and dad!Gojou truthers earnestly arguing that Gojou has paternal feelings toward Megumi (or Yuuji or his students in general) and is also such a good dad. I’ve seen it with even sukugo and tojigo, in the brief days before both wound up on my blacklist.

Basically, it’s a fandom-wide issue in the English-speaking JJK sphere (I’m sure the Eastern side and other language/region-specific sides have their own debates and issues, but I’m unfamiliar with those), and because satosugu is the biggest ship in this sphere, it has a significantly larger number of voices making themselves heard—as well as a significantly larger number of nuance-allergic dumbasses making themselves heard. The latter tends to be so fucking loud, often drowning out the other voices. It can feel inescapable, even with filters and shit.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Alana Bloom

she kissed will graham in s1 and dated hannibal in s2 so you can imagine how bad the fandom is to her. fun fact she's in a canon lesbian relationship now tho <3

The show literally does the yaoi treatment of victimisation for the benefit of the male leads to her. And then the fandom mistreats her

I'm not sure if this even counts but...Literally a victim of Yaoi along with several other characters in-series, but she got it almost the worst. The entire show is just people dying because the two male leads are OBSESSED with each other and can't be normal about anything. Alana Bloom, actual PhD of psychology and consultant to the FBI, got kissed by one guy, fucked and fed people-meant by the other, and pushed out a window by the murder husbands' forced-surrogate daughter. Like. Actual victim of several crimes caused by yaoi. She's probably one of the few examples of a Yaoi Victim overcoming and evolving past her yaoi-related trauma into a stronger person/character, though: She gets an entire character overhaul and a hot, millionairess for a wife. She kills a man with an eel. She becomes head of the BSHCI, effectively putting her in complete power over her jackass cannibal ex-bf. She does quite well. Unfortunately, the rest of her screen time is spent trying not to get killed in the ongoing fallout of Hannibal and Will's fucked up courtship, but hey. Can't have everything. I don't even know if I'm saying anything valid here: the fandom loves her, but I supposed her position outside of the Hannigram relationship relegates her to a non-subject in a lot of Hannigram-focused fanwork. She's an 'obstacle' to their relationship only in the sense that Will had a crush on her once that went nowhere and Hannibal started an actual relationship with her SPECIFICALLY to piss off Will. I guess she's also a more literal obstacle as Hannibal's jailer and Will's friend who's constantly pointing out to him that Morals exist and he should try having some of those, maybe.

Gwen

She stands in the way of Merthur, by far the most popular ship in the fandom. I haven’t seen it as much in recent years, but back in the days of fanfiction.net she got slut shamed so badly for having been romantically interested in three of the male characters over the course of the show, which is just... normal straight woman behavior, meanwhile Merlin crushed on pretty much every woman who even looked at him in the early seasons of the show and got no hate for that whatsoever. I barely even read Merthur fics (not because it’s m/m, just because certain aspects of their relationship don’t appeal to me) but the “Gwen is a slut” attitude was so pervasive across the fandom, even fics that weren’t explicitly anti-Gwen would “jokingly” call her a slut. I even saw a few fics demonizing her for having an affair with Lancelot despite the fact that SHE WAS ENCHANTED when that happened, and surprise surprise, Lancelot (who was also under the influence of magic) got none of that hate, and neither did Arthur, who got enchanted to fall in love with multiple women over the course of the show.

Canonically Arthur Pendragon's love interest and an important and interesting character in the show who's completely shoved aside and ignored in favour of the medieval bbc yaoi ship. At best they put her and Morgana in Lesbian Timeout (ie make them get together and then reduce them to wingwomen at best because god forbid we focus on the medieval bbc yuri). Justice for Gwen right now!

She is prince Arthur's love interest (eventually wife). Arthur is MADLY in love with her. He tells his tyrannical father he would give up his crown to be with her (she's a servant in the series). He forgives her cheating on him with Lancelot (!), which in the show is caused by an evil enchantment, but the characters never find out about it. He chooses her time and time again. His love for Gwen is literally never put into question. Many fans insist to this day that there was no chemistry between Gwen and Arthur compared to Arthur and Merlin. Arthur isn’t even particularly nice to Merlin most of the time! The funny thing is that Merlin himself ships these two so hard and does everything he can to help them get together!! Gwen & Arthur are adorable and too many fans were drunk on the yaoi fumes to see it. ARTHUR WAS A SIMP FOR GWEN.

[freakattack]

Since you did that LGBT+ headcanon post for the Mario cast, could you do one for the WarioWare crew?

LOL thank you for taking interest in my gay luigi posts. I actually did make one of these before but that was two years ago and also mostly jokes so I think this is as good a time as any to do it again but in serious mode. I have also changed my mind on some of these so they might not all line up with the other post but such is life. Obligatory "That's My Opinion" so if my tabloid speculations don't line up with yours feel free to imagine me falling down a very deep hole, or you can close one eye and pretend you're squishing my icon between your fingers like a bug if that's more your speed

WARIO: Briefly said this in the mario post but sure I'll go into more detail about wario's sex life, I think he's aromantic and bisexual. I do realize it comes off as kind of shitty to make Mario be Romantic Asexual and "Evil Mario" be Aromantic Sexual, but as a Wario Megafan I just think that he values his friendships a lot more, and given what we have seen of wario's disgust for romance despite his very active libido* (I promise that link is not as bad as it looks), I think it would be remiss to pretend that he would ever want to settle down with someone. He still loves people in a platonic way - even beyond the warioware cast, he cared a lot about princess shokora by the end of WL4, and even though he does not necessarily LIKE waluigi (and I do subscribe to poppadopolos theory so I am of the belief that they were fuckin' and truckin' for a good portion of the early 2000's), I think wario still cares about him in his wario way. They are like a divorced couple that still has kids except instead of kids it's cheating at tennis. Also, I think that wario is transgender, because it explains a lot about him (e.g. his lack of nipples) and because that way nobody has to think about what his "real name" was before it was wario. It was his deadname! Everybody go home! Have a rotten day!

*I do not think that wario would canonically catcall random news reporters but I'm still counting this as nebulous evidence that wario can be horny

MONA: I think that she is bisexual but doesn't know it at this point in time and also isn't really stressing about it. Her taste is kind of skewed towards whatever wario is (in a puppy love type of way i do NOT ship them), but if she ended up having a close friendship with a girl her age I could see her catching feelings. I don't wanna say that her thing with wario is comphet because that's not entirely true but I do think that his unattainability is a comfortable way for her to not have to think about actually getting into a relationship. (For the record, I don't think she even wants to BE in a relationship with him, I think she is perfectly happy with the way things are, but mona has TMI'd about her opinion on wario's physique often enough that I kind of get the idea.)

JIMMY T: My opinions on him have not changed. Who do you think gave him the T? Also, I didn't mention this before, but I do think he is bisexual, and although it kind of feels like a cop-out to make the Holy Trinity of Warioware all bisexual, sometimes that's just how the cookie crumbles. Groovy!

DRIBBLE: This is where things start to diverge from the original post. I said he was bisexual before But I lied I think he just likes men. I think that he has a supportive family, but he's still a little shy about actually going out to meet people and start a relationship. Anyways you're probably not gonna like what I have to say next

SPITZ: I am soooooo sorry. But I think that he is straight. More power to you guys but I never really got into dribblenspitz as a Ship because I associate their dynamic so strongly with the Cool Boss + Rookie dynamic that we have all been at least one half of that I can't imagine them in a romantic relationship. They have the most beautiful bromance of course, they would go to the ends of the earth for each other, but they wouldn't smooch. I think that spitz's dating life is/has been kind of sad (not in a angst way in a regular way) and were he to go back into the dating scene dribble would hype him up about it and give him advice and spitz would be like hey why don't you have a girlfriend? You're clearly better at this than me and dribble would say uuuhhhhh

ORBULON: Orbulon is hard to pigeonhole into these labels because the guys on orbulon's home planet operate on an entirely different paradigm from humans on earth. Reproduction via budding, communal childrearing, telepathic mega-cliques*.....on Earth, orbulon certainly has no interest in romance or beyond (both because he has no need for it and because he is two thousand years old on the planet of the apes), but he does have fun being a girl. You could call him "genderfluid", but he also doesn't feel too much of a connection to any earth genders in general; he just likes wearing different hats.

*THAT'S MY OPINION

CRYGOR: I think that he has had no interest in romance for a hundred years, but also if he randomly picked up a stepdad for his adult children one day I would not be mad. (Mike might be, but he would eventually come around due to the Power of Love and whatnot.) Penny is his "granddaughter" but I think that this is more a label for convenience's sake and because she IS his granddaughter at heart. "But why does she randomly show up into everyone's lives in smooth moves as a full grown kid" Until warioware decides to show me her parents themselves I'm not entertaining this plot hole

PENNY: The reason I don't think penny is his granddaughter is because I still think she is a transgender clone of dr crygor. I think that crygor is enthusiastically supportive of her, gets her all the pink glittery shit her heart could desire, and helped her transition with his Science Inventions. I also think she is a lesbian, although I don't Ship her with anyone in the main cast (sorry again).

MIKE: Earlier I said that mike was "gay but he thinks everyone is annoying". That was before they revealed this bombshell:

Now, this could mean absolutely nothing. Checking the translation of the japanese website yields pretty much the same sentence. However, due to an incident involving a botched translation before the english version of this website came out, I had it in my head for a while that the connotation here was of a certain kind of fascination. And honestly, who could blame him? This is a karaoke machine that got frosty the snowman'd into existence. Of course he would be conflicted about who he is supposed to love. Does he have the heart of a man, or machine? Even Mike does not have an answer. So, my revised LGBT+ headcanon for Mike Crygor is "gay, and whatever this is".

5-VOLT: I'm on the fence about whether i Actually Think This but I am very fond of when people headcanon her as a trans woman, so I'm giving that a shout out. Shout Out! Other than that, I think she's only ever dated men and is happy that way.

.......Unless

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 7

very notable that this was within the context of being about "love" specifically. (at least) one-sided trevek canon? (i'm not even a huge trevek shipper i just think this whole plotline is funny)

okay, so Yul's foot injury IS real. or at least, he's using it as an excuse to complain. still, the fact that it was brought up again an episode later makes me think that it's going to have SOME relevance to the plot.

any time that Yul has to parrot something in Emily's "you go girlfriend ;D" manner of speaking i cackle. he didn't choose the home decor saying any time is wine time lifestyle, the home decor saying any time is wine time lifestyle chose him.

Grett i am... genuinely confused. how can you possibly think that Yul is actually in love with you? did you really receive THAT little love in your home life? you have no ability to distinguish catty and fake praise for your accomplishments from real ones because your family gave you THAT little recognition? man. now i made myself sad :( ily Grett

okay, confirming that 1) it was Tom's trap, 2) they are willing to eat squirrels, 3) Tom is serving as the provider for the Cyan tribe. all things to take into account for any upcoming Cyan eliminations.

why

and how does said boyfriend feel about you kissing another man on television, Tom? this is a stupid lie.

again, why? it's probably already apparent from my earlier comments, but i changed my mind; i'm fully with Jake in this argument now. sure, Jake is really insecure and overly emotional, but what the HELL is Tom doing? making up a boyfriend is a really shitty thing to do, whether Tom had a legit reason for not calling Jake these past two years or if he didn't contact Jake due to his own mixed feelings/indifference. in either case, he should have told Jake the truth. at least when Jake was acting immature in S1, he was 24. Tom is a nearly 30 year old man. ACT LIKE IT.

Fiore slay

this is a really interesting response due to how vague it is, including in the vocal performance. was he taken off guard by his boss being nice to him? does he believe that she's telling the truth? does he feel bad for Trevor, or will he come to believe that he IS way better than Trevor? i'm glad that they're continuing on with the concept of the hosts having a plotline, because imo that was one of the highlights of S2, but they aren't doing it in a way that eats up as much of the screentime as it did in S2.

if Will was out of the picture i would be shipping these two so hard. who am I kidding, i kind of still am anyways.

Ally's other gf is here :,) glad that they got to reconnect (and neither of them were eliminated for it)

Fiore slay

the confirmation that Aiden thinks that the idea of him having any attraction to Tom is laughable and disgusting is HILARIOUS to me. bro really said, "why the hell would i be into YOU when i have JAMES lmao" straight to Tom's face. tbf, James and Tom are like... opposites in terms of personality and appearance (beyond being generally handsome and athletic young men).

"silly me, i keep forgetting that not everyone met their super cool and attractive boyfriend on reality TV. my bad!" (/pos)

(i tried to type "hubby" instead of boyfriend but i spared you all. it was too cringe even as the one subjecting others to the cringe.)

okay this was very fitting for her. iconic.

honestly, Alec and Riya's villainous alliance/friendship is really fun. leave it to Alec to always find himself in the least likely but most entertaining duos. Riya really benefits from being paired with a legitimate strategist, and someone who won't just let her totally get away with stuff.

we had to get in one last Fiore taking unnecessary damage for the road :,(

feeling like Jaiden is going to be winning the starting couples' survival roulette. and Wishley, to the extent they count.

now i'm no physicist, but how did this work? shouldn't the ball be a fast and heavy enough object at this point that it would jump over the log, not ricochet off of it? i suppose if the ball is made of something more like wicker than yarn, it could be a bit more likely to do that. but then why is it going to the side? it hit the log straight on!

... are you not allowed to help him anymore? what?

ellie is going full villain mode fr. if her and gabby's relationship gets messed up, that would definitely be karma. but, i suppose she survives this episode...

this is funny because nobody strikes me as the pizza and soda loving type. Alec, Grett, Yul, and Riya all seem like people who would want to eat something that's both fancier and healthier.

communication W (for both of them)

Fiore is such a best girl that she's not even a salty juror. she's not mad at them for so long that she can't use her final moments to throw a wrench in the works for everyone else. the grind never sleeps, clowns <3

and she even conquered her greatest nemesis, the bus, this time. fly high, queen. i'll miss you.

well, as a Fiore stan, this episode was a bit sad for me. but, i do totally understand why Magenta would both vote for Fiore and lose the challenge. (damn you, Ellie...) Fiore already did super well in both S1 and the original Adventure Camp, so i understand why they wouldn't have her go super far again in this season, especially when everyone knows she's such a threat.

i just hope that we can still get a little more closure for her and Alec than we got already in this season. all it has to be is, like, him being sad at her elimination for reasons other than pure strategy and maybe a nice conversation at the finale. it doesn't have to be Alec finally adopting her... even if i did want that to happen... i'd just prefer to know that they leave things on good terms.

anyways, another really solid episode! i look forward to the next one. thanks for reading!

[zutaralesbian]

I recently re-read my own fic not all heroes wear capes and thought it would be fun to answer some questions for @shamelessdvdcommentary ❤️

(Questions and answers under the cut)

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

I wrote it back in 2020 for one of the rounds of the Shameless Big Bang. It’s a multi-chapter but a short one (only seven chapters and 37,560 words). I don’t quite remember how long it took me to finish it but it was at least four months I imagine, given I wrote it for the Big Bang and took up pretty much the entire time given.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

This is probably a bit spoilerish of an answer but back when the show was still airing, I talked a lot about Ian’s hero complex. It’s one of my favorite aspects of his character and it’s what initially morphed my idea of what his role is in this fic. (If you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about).

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

It’s mostly told from Mickey’s POV but it does change to Ian’s from time to time too. I chose Mickey to take up the majority of it because I wanted Ian’s role in the story to be a bit more mysterious.

What was your favourite scene to write?

A scene in the middle of chapter two, where Ian and Mickey come together and talk about what split them apart. (The story is a post-S3 canon divergence with a twist). I remember really enjoying writing the dialogue between them in that scene because I love writing hurt/comfort. And I think the finished product turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

(Off topic side-note but after re-reading that whole chapter, I realized that I wrote the sex scene to be much more explicit than I remembered. Which is strange for me because I’m usually only confident in writing sex between wlw ships. I normally go fade to black with Gallavich).

How did you come up with the title?

Titling is one of the hardest parts of writing fic for me, for some reason lmao. It literally just randomly came to mind. I think it’s corny but it goes with the theme of the story so 🤷‍♀️ I’m not good at titles so I can’t really be picky on that front.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

The action/fight scenes. Which sucked, considering the main plot of the fic lol. Writing those was like pulling teeth. But I pulled myself through, even though I don’t think they turned out all that great. I’m much better at writing emotional stuff.

Favourite line in the story?

“We were kids,” he clarified at Ian’s questioning expression. “And things were shit. We never stood a chance.”

It just sums up my feelings about S3 Gallavich tbh 😭

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story?

Not really during the writing process. But when I was first trying to plan it, I debated whether to make it a canon divergence (which is what it ended up being) or a straight up AU. I ended up doing what I did both for the angst factor of it being post S3 and because I personally find full on AU’s to be much harder to write than fics that are based at least somewhat on canon.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

I’ve had a few people tell me that the fic “kept them guessing” as they read it. Which happily surprised me because while I was trying to be at least a little mysterious while writing, I didn’t really think I had succeeded. So I was proud of myself when a small amount of people validated me on that!

Are there any deleted scenes that didn’t make it to the final story?

No specific scenes but I did originally envision a small interlude towards the end. Ian and Mickey hit a rough patch at some point in the fic because Mickey discovers a big secret that Ian kept from him. In the finished product, Mickey forgives Ian relatively quickly. At some point, it was going to be a more angsty and longer process. But I ended up not going in that direction because I felt like it would drag the story out a little too much.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

In the story, Sandy (who plays a supporting role in the fic) and Debbie are exes and Sandy eventually dates an OC. Given that I’ve grown much fonder of Debbie over the years, I think I would give her an actual role and keep her and Sandy dating if I wrote it now.

I also would have done a better job at a certain flashback scene towards the end because, along with the action scenes, it’s one of the weaker parts of the story imo.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

Nah. Maybe a one-shot sequel of sorts if inspiration ever hit.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

Very nervous! It was my first multi-chapter Gallavich fic and first time participating in a fandom event like a big bang.

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote?

Yes! Given that it was a big bang, I had a beta assigned to me. shame_less18 on ao3! And she did a fantastic job! (Not sure if she has a tumblr unfortunately). Part of the reason I chose this fic to do this commentary for is because I know it’s most likely the one with the least amount of errors for that reason lol.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

This is probably my favorite fic that I’ve written. (For Shameless anyway). Mostly because it was a lot of fun. My life was simpler back then and the Shameless/Gallavich fandom was fairly popping with S10 having just aired. I’ll always look at it fondly.

[whateverafterhigh]

I'm thinking about EAH putting on an "event", perhaps a charity ball type thing, where there are students from any class attending (because you don't not invite certain important people lest they choose to curse you and your baby) but it's still graded on the basis of performance counting towards extra credit in various subjects (dance, wooing, princessology, etc).

Only you don't choose your own partner.

It's a bit like the teachers pairing you up for a group project with other people in the class, but the metric they are using to decide who gets partnered with who is based on the Ballroom Dance portion of the evening. As your ideal Ballroom partner is meant to be the same or similar height to you (you're supposed to be able to see over their shoulder, though generally the person being spun should also be short enough to go under the arm).

Which is where ship pairings come in.

Obviously, as a Dexven shipper I'm thinking about Dexter and Raven being around the same height. Maybe they were paired up together originally and Dexter had to do some smooth talking to stay paired up with Raven because someone balked at the idea of placing Raven with a Prince Charming (especially when his extra credit class is Advanced Wooing), or maybe he was originally paired with Duchess but Duchess made a fuss of some sort about Dexter being a bad dancer in the practice dance they had and Raven gets defensive (jealous) and does a practice dance with Dexter to "prove" that Duchess is the problem (inadvertently earning extra credit points for one of her villain classes for stealing someone else's prince) and getting paired with Dexter instead(I think that one would need a meaner-than-canon Raven given she'd be roleplaying a villain part to even do that in the first place, as the Prince dances and professes his love to someone who is not the Swan Princess in Swan Lake. Poor Duchess).

Meanwhile, Apple is having a crisis of her own because she and Daring aren't height matched and that's just feeding into her preexisting insecurities about her looks as she believes it implies she's not good enough for her role if she doesn't match her Prince Charming. Like maybe the two of them did get paired together anyway for that reason and Apple is still a little short despite that and whatever heels she's already wearing.

Or maybe they didn't get a chance to try as Apple and Darling get paired together since EAH has more girls than boys. And Darling gets to play the part of Prince Charming comforting the upset princess, and slowly falling in love, while Apple is perhaps too caught up in "destiny" to realise that she might not be straight (or rather rejects the few glimpses she does have during the dance when she does let herself have some fun because she's too scared by the fact she doesn't know how taking that chance at happily-ever-after would turn out).

[13thdoctorposts]

Just had to laugh at an idea trying to tear down 13Yaz because it wasnt planned from day 1 so we shouldn't act like there's any subtext or hindsight. First of all, it is an Amazing thing that the cast and crew responded to fan interest by going with the chemistry and creating the canon relationship that is literally something that should be encouraged!!! Secondly, something not being intentional doesn't mean it isn't there, especially because the intentional stuff is built on that foundation.

Yeah, and I think more shows should work with the chemistry of the actors they have because the ships that get shipped the most tend to be the ones where the actors have the most chemistry with each other. The fact that Thasmin wasn’t intentional, but so many felt and saw it before it was actually speaks volumes considering 13 did have such a full TARDIS team so her attention was divided between the 3 she wasn’t just playing off Yaz unlike previous Doctors and yet people still saw it and felt it and then the actors saw us seeing it took that to the writers and it became intentional. It should ok for a show to not know exactly where their characters are going to fully end up in 3 series time.

And while it may not have been intentional from the writers Mandip was throwing out heart eyes at the Doctor every chance she could get so it’s not like no one was thinking about it.

Also as the 13th Doctors story evolves it actually makes complete sense that Yaz would fall for the Doctor her awe and admiration turning into love, it’s the most logical progression for Yaz, they didn’t need to know that at the beginning for it to work for her trajectory. The traits of the Doctor are the kind of traits Yaz would fall for, caring, always wants to help, puts herself between danger and others, inquisitive, and knowledgeable. As for the Doctor, her falling for Yaz that makes sense to because Yaz has been her rock her whole life, minus the prison years but the Doctor would have seen in the other TARDIS how dedicated to finding her Yaz was, she has stayed by the Doctors side through thick and thin, all her trauma despite how the Doctor reacts to the trauma and the way that makes her treat Yaz at times. Yaz is by no means a push over but she’s also understanding, caring and drama free. She’s not creating any kind of extra chaos in the Doctors world. She can always count on Yaz being there, which she probably does take a bit for granted but also a reason why you could her falling for her.

Sometimes letting the writers figure somethings out as they go is the best way for things to happen. And it’s not even like that’s new, no one has a a million seasons mapped out with every story and every relationship, shows evolve. If it was a straight couple that wasn’t intentional from the start I don’t think we would see the same discourse honestly.

[sky4cherry]

i NEED your take on cherrybev

i have been waiting for this day anon

this is the only time you’ll catch me genuinely frothing at the mouth over a cherry ship that isn’t just her and bob (chetcherry i love you but we aren’t at that level quite yet) (cherrycola i love you but i have a responsibility as the no 1 chet fan and the no 1 bob defender)

my perception of cherrybev is sad you guys

brill and bev will never not be endgame to me so when i discovered cherrybev my brain was like “yeah cherry definitely has a one sided crush on bev who is so painfully straight and literally counting down the days until she can marry brill” :(

do you know what’s even worse,, marcia having a crush on cherry who has a crush on bev who is so in love with brill :(

it’s so sad too because the girls are all so affectionate with each other so they’ll be having a sleepover and doing each other’s nails and cherry literally holds her breath when bev touches her hand

and marcia just sits there like 🧍 hahahaha hold my hand rn cherry

bev is so utterly blinded by her heterosexuality that she doesn’t notice but MARCIA DOES 💔💔💔

cherrybev HAVE kissed on the mouth during a game of spin the bottle but it was played off for laughs by the boys and bev

cherry hides away later on and marcia just comes and finds her and goes “it’s scary isn’t it?” and 🫶 a mutual coming out goes so insanely hard

anyway you asked for cherrybev but that’s how i see cherry and marcia starting to realise they should’ve kissed years ago and they start making up for lost time 🫶🫶🫶

clark brillstein bev being ur gf is the only canon information we have about you i can’t reduce you to nothing you are my best friend and you’re not even real 💔