#look okay i get that stucky is often viewed as romantic I GET IT but the platonic interp is also good

[findafight]

I need. NEED. Y'all to understand that in a MCU captain america au Bucky and Steve would be Steve and Robin. Like. The unhinged amount of devotion? Yes. Soviet torture? Yes.

But it also MUST be understood that Steve is Bucky, and Robin is Steve. DO YOU SEE MY VISION.

Steve, charming and charasmatic, looks out for his awkward but good hearted and mildly unhinged (he's no better) bestie until he goes off to war. Robin, a bit of a weirdo, wants to do something to help fight. She ends up in an experimental program, and getting super strength etc.

She gets shipped around as propoganda. She ends up in Italy. She finds out Steve's unit has been captured. Her best friend, the only one who really knows her, the guy she's probably going to end up bearded by. Her sweet cheese.

She goes to save him.

Against all odds she does. He's strapped to a table and muttering to himself and thinks he's hallucinating when he sees her. But she saves him.

They form a strike team, blow up bases, punch Nazis etc. The war in Europe is almost over. Then Steve falls from a train. Then Robin crashes a plane. They both die heroes.

Except.

Robin wakes up. She wakes up in a world not her own and she's scared and frightened and told she has to fight again except this time she's alone.

And she does. She follows orders and fights and tries to figure out how to live when anyone who would understand her is in their eighties at the youngest or dead. How to exist in a world where the only person, even in their own time, who actually knew her, was dead. Dead for a long time. Deified alongside her by America.

So she follows orders. Until she doesn't. Until fury dies and someone with a metal arm and long brown hair shoots at her but holds their own against her enhanced strength. Pushes her, actually, being broader than her.

And she has allies, yes, but when it comes down to it, it's just her and the Soldier. Fighting under the overpass, and there's something about the Soldiers brow, the possible cowlick on his hairline where his long hair should be parted, that pings something in the back of her mind.

The mask slips off. And Robin thinks she's died again.

He doesn't recognize her, but his eyebrows scruntch together in a way she's known for what feels like eons. She's missed him.

A long time ago, longer for some than for her, he had been strapped to a table. She saved him then. She is going to save him now.

On a helicarrier, she can't bring herself to fight him. She knows him, how many hits he's taken, and even after whatever's been done to him, she knows him. Knows he's confused and scared and fighting it. Whatever's taken him away from her.

He knows her too. She can tell by the way he hesitated, pulls back. He's in there. She just has to find him.

She falls.

A strong hand pulls her out of the river.

[icannotreadcursive]

Sometimes, people have different--very different--sets of headcanons and sets of ships etc for a given piece of media and cast of characters because they have basically different understandings of who those characters are.

A lot of times, that’s just because every fan as their own unique life experience to apply when engaging with and interpreting a work, so they see different things reflected back.

But when it comes to what I call Legacy Characters--characters that have had their story told and retold, adapted and readapted, reinvested and reset time and again; such as comic book characters--a huge part of who a fan understands a character to be is determined by what versions of that character they’re familiar with, what aspects of different versions have coalesced in their brain to form their sense of that character in general.  Usually, the biggest influence there is which version of a character that fan encountered first.

I see both knock-down drag-out fights and casual disrespectful disparaging comments within some fandoms--especially big comics fandoms like Marvel--that on the surface of them are more of the typical dumb “my interpretation is the only right one and anyone who disagrees is wrong and Doesn’t Understand The Media” stuff, but that I am SO SURE mostly boils down to this issue of having very different but all equally legitimate senses of the characters from having familiarity with different appearances of the character, or in a different order.

For instance--using what I find to be the most glaring case as an example--the Marvel shipping wars amongst Steve/Bucky, Steve/Tony, Sam/Steve, Bucky/Natasha, and (increasingly) Sam/Bucky shippers.  Sometimes the Pepper/Tony, Pepper/Natasha, and Bruce/Tony shippers join the fray.

These conflicts get so nasty.  Even a lot of the more chill shippers, when prompted, have very ugly things to say about ships other than their own and the people who support them.  Allegations of racism, misogyny, fetishization, and general toxicity run rampant and are often talked about as though they are the only possible reasons someone could ever have for shipping or not shipping a given pair.

I want to make it clear that I personally do ship or have shipped several of the above, including ones that mutually exclude each other.  There’s a few I’m neutral on up there, and one that kinda squicks me--we’ll get to that later.

Every single one of them is a perfectly good ship.  None of them are inherently fucked up in any way and I will not hear any argument to the contrary.  

Do some supporters of these ships get overzealous and obnoxious?  Yes, that’s kinda why we’re talking about it, but that’s not a problem with any of the ships themselves.

I’ve noticed some patterns around people being into particular ones of these ships and their personal histories with various Marvel media.

Steve/Tony: mostly comics fans at this point, either were into the comics before the MCU became a thing or the early days of the MCU got them into the comics and they’re now more into the comics than the films.  Because there’s a LOT of material in the comics to support the ship!  There’s so much!  Including the fact that in one comics reality where Tony is a woman, she and Steve get married!  

Now, there was a ton of this’ere Stony fic that got churned out in the early days of the MCU, a lot of it from fans getting into this world for the first time through the phase 1 movies, at which point other potential partners for these guys either hadn’t been introduced as characters yet, or hadn’t been fleshed out.  A lot of film-main (as opposed to comics-main) Stony shippers moved away from the pairing as the MCU continued, Bucky became the counterpoint of Steve’s Character arc, Sam got brought in, Pepper and Bruce each got more screen time, and the dynamic between Steve and Tony in the films got increasingly adversarial in a way that’s less sexy more fucked up.

The battle cry against Stony from other factions, especially from the Steve/Bucky camp is usually “but they’re so toxic!” and, I mean, yeah--if your sense of these characters is primarily based on how they are in the MCU, they are.  But in my experience, even if they’re working MCU events and settings, the Steve and Tony being imagined by Stony shippers aren’t really that Steve and Tony.

Steve/Bucky: look, Stucky is an MCU thing.  Articles have been written and published about the fact that the dynamic between Steve and Bucky in the MCU follows the beats of an epic romance to a T.  The basis for this ship is all there on screen--throw in a little bit of history nerd mojo and you’re in deep.

By my observation and estimation, most new or formerly-very-casual Marvel fans who came in via the films and remained film-mains, and who are inclined to not-strictly-heteronormative shipping at all went the Stucky route.  Folks who initially shipped Stony then switched to Stucky are pretty common.  People starting with Stucky and then switching to any other ship with Steve to the exclusion of Stucky? Very rare.  And while for a lot of people Stucky is their OTP in the strictest sense, I do see a lot of Stucky shippers who are here for other ships as well, either in an alternate realities kinda way or an amicable exes/polyamory kinda way.

The only people I’ve seen who have a problem with Stucky as a ship (other than “my ship is a different ship, therefore this one is bad and wrong”) are comics-mains whose sense of Steve and Bucky is heavily informed by runs of the comics in which Bucky is significantly younger than Steve and kid sidekick type figure.  For them, the dynamic between the general forms of these characters leans mentor/student or protector/charge, so the inclination is to read the MCU relationship as fraternal, because it being romantic is squicky based on their sense of the characters.

Sam/Steve: comics-mains, film-mains with significant comics familiarity, film-mains who just aren’t into Stucky for one reason or another, or film-mains who are just really into Anthony Mackey which is a perfectly valid reason to get behind a ship.  People who know Falcon from the comics seem much more likely to be into this ship and also more invested in this ship.  I’m not qualified to say much about support for this ship from the comics themselves because my personal familiarity with Marvel comics doesn’t include much of Sam Wilson at all, but I am absolutely qualified to say there’s support from the films, especially CA:WS.

The worst vitriol against this ship tends to come from overzealous Stucky OTP shippers who really need to remember that fandom is supposed to be fun, and flat out racists.  That must be acknowledged and needs to be addressed.  Fandom racism in general, and against Sam in particular is a thing and it can absolutely be a factor in shipping.  

However it’s not inherently racist to just not ship Sam/Steve because you see them as bros, or because Stucky is your OTP, or because you ship Sam with someone else, or whatever.  Worthwhile to take a minute to examine why you don’t ship it, if you don’t, and check that for racial bias in how you view and treat Sam as a character, especially if you’re white.

Sam/Steve and Stucky are the two ships I see coexist the most!  A lot of people ship both of them separately and exclusive from one another, but a lot of people also go ether the OT3 or the “Steve and Sam were definitely a thing for while there but now they’re not” route.

Bucky/Natasha: comics-mains or film-mains with significant comics familiarity, particularly for the comics worlds in which Bucky and Natasha are a couple, which seems self explanatory as to why that correlates.  Not a lot for it in the films, Nat and Buck don’t interact much in the films that we see, and they’re kinda trying to kill each other in much of what we do see.  But, like I said, they’re a thing in some of the comics so there we have that.

This is the one that squicks me.  Clearly it’s a super valid ship; depending on the canon it’s a canon ship.  Frankly, they make sense together, canon or not--their individual backgrounds as spysassins and with brainwashing etc means they’d be able to understand one another in ways no one else around them really can.  But my personal amalgamation of these characters from the films and what comics I’m familiar with has Bucky having been Natasha’s teacher when she was a kid in Red Room.  So I cannot ship it, I can’t do it.  

The fact that I personally am squeaked by it has absolutely no impact on the fact that it’s a good ship, and the fact that it’s a good ship cannot and does not negate the fact that it squicks me.

Bucky/Sam: okay, there’s not a lot of this out there yet, but what there is seems to mostly be coming from film-mains who either don’t ship or co-ship Stucky and/or Sam/Steve, and who really liked the dynamic between these two in Civil War, and I guarantee you we’re about to get so much more of this ship with Falcon and Winter Soldier premiering.  I’ve already seen some hate directed at this ship from the same places Sam/Steve gets hate.  I predict, though, that this one will also get co-shipped alongside Stucky by the less strictly OTP of those shippers and I’m curious to see what the dynamic ends up being between Bucky/Sam shippers and Sam/Steve shippers as this camp grows.

In conclusion, I guess, note that not shipping a ship doesn’t have to mean attacking that ship (and it shouldn’tI) and not liking a ship, even being deeply uncomfortable with a ship for your own reasons doesn’t mean that ship is bad.  We’ve all got our own individual sets of experiences both in life and with the characters in our fandoms that can dramatically change how we see those characters and their relationships to one another.  This gets especially complicated and diverse with Legacy Characters like those from sprawling long-running comics multiverses.  Someone’s understanding and interpretation being different from yours does not make either of you wrong!

As long as no one is an asshole about it it, it’s actually really interesting and cool to compare interpretations and see how your understandings overlap and differ, to think about what bits of canon have been formative for you and what personal experience may have made you inclined to interpret certain things certain ways.

Fandom is supposed to be fun.  Shipping is supposed to be fun.  You can and should hype up and express love for your own ships without tearing down others.

[underwaterattribute]

Dont care if you've not reblogged it. Character breakdown. Geralt and or Yennifer. And if you so choose, Steve Rogers from the MCU

Okay, I only gave you two, you gave me three :P

Let’s go with Yennefer

How I feel about this character

As a character, Yennefer is great- it’s unusual to get to see a female character who gets to be as blindly ambitious and ruthless as she is, not to mention that the way she is filmed is fantastic; she’s not sexualised in scenes that often would be sexualised (like the transformation scene, which is intercut with Geralt’s fight with the striga and really fucking disturbing to watch, actually), and gets to have a sexual and romantic story line as a disabled woman, which is great.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I don’t really ship Yennefer with anyone, honestly. I’ve read some good OT3 fics with her, but often in the fics I read she either is happy with herself or the pairings she’s in feel more like a ‘pair the spares’ situation, which makes it hard for me to have much of an opinion on the ship. I tend to read fics with one specific pairing, and she’s not in it, so I’m happy to read her in a side pairing with pretty much anyone. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Give me ALL the mother/daughter bonding between Yennefer and Ciri. Let her become a good mum, and grow as a person through her interactions with Ciri.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I think she’s a great character. But. I don’t like her. I’m too skeeved out by the orgy scene, honestly. And her anger at losing her ability to have children (or to have the ability to choose to have children, I suppose) is somewhat undercut with how she chose the transformation thing. It makes her ruthlessness in pursuing a cure somewhat unsympathetic, although I get that people can change and regret choices that they’ve made, and also that that’s not how it happened in the books. Like I said, great character, well written, complex and intersting, it’s just that I, personally, don’t like her, not that she’s a ‘bad’ character in any respects.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I really hope we get to see her grow and change in season 2, and that she gets to bond with Ciri. 

Steve Rogers

How I feel about this character

I love that the public perception (both in universe and otherwise) is so different to who Steve actually is. It makes for some really interesting stories. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Bucky. When I read fic, I almost always either go into it with an OTP or gain an OTP very quickly, and I honestly can’t remember which it was with Stucky. I’ve read and enjoyed a few OT3 fics with Steve/Bucky/Sam and Steve/Bucky/Natasha. And listened to one fantastically funny podfic read by quietnight called ‘An Exceedingly Mutually Understood and Well Coordinated Time’ which is an AU which has the tropes A/B/O, soulbonding, and telepathic bonding. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Natasha Romanova. I love the way they’re both underestimated in completely different ways, and have such different backstories and ways of looking at the world and can help each other in unique ways. All the bro bonding for those two.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I think fic authors often write him as catching up with the times way to quickly on social issues. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t find out more about things that weren’t even spoken of back in the 40s and then take the stance he does in those fics, because he absolutely would, but he is often written as already knowing a whole lot about things that he probably should take a while to catch up with, at least for the terminology- what is and is not acceptable words to use even within certain groups has changed a lot, and most fics don’t acknowledge that. Steve is not going to come out of the ice knowing not to use various words that are now (and were in the 40s, but there were no other words available to use) slurs. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Steve did not go back in time and stay with Peggy, he just didn’t. And even if he considered it, he would never just LET HYDRA KEEP ON INFILTRATING SHIELD. 

Ah hell, let’s do Geralt, too

How I feel about this character

I enjoy the Stinky Bog-Man. I like that, as one meta writer put it, contradicts the trope of the unemotional action character. That people viewing him as being that macho, unfeeling sort of person is what is messing him up so badly. It makes for lots of potential stories where he gets to heal, at least a bit.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Jaskier. I like that Jaskier brings a lightness with him, as well as. Well. All the other character either aren’t recurring or he’s bound to them by Destiny, which is something he hates and fights against. I think it’s important that, given how much he hates the idea of Destiny, the person he ends up with is someone he chooses, outside of what has been decided for him.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Parent child bonding with Ciri. Let him learn to be soft with her, and by extension with himself. Also Geralt X Therapy. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

I get that lots of people like the look of him when he’s all sweaty etc. But it’s so gross. All I can think of in those scenes is ‘ew. sticky.’ (Look, I have a thing about sweat. I hate it. My OCD compels me to wash it off as soon as I get even a little bit sweaty and I also want to wash any bits of me that have come into contact with a sweaty person. Yes, it is actual, diagnosed OCD, not hyperbole, I know it’s unhealthy, dont @ me)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Please, please let him become less self hating, and let him be able to express and acknowledge his own emotions. Maybe also expand his vocabulary. 

[spikeymarshmallows]

writing meme-o

look, I maybe was stalking back through someone’s blog and I found this and did it, don’t @ me.

last sentence tag

Finally, Klaus just mutters, "why the fuck is The Louvre requesting I visit them?"

AO3 tag game

WHAT IS YOUR TOTAL WORD COUNT ON AO3?

268k apparently [jeepers creepers!]

HOW OFTEN DO YOU WRITE?

I have endeavoured to write at least 100 words every single day. Today actually marks 150 days in a row! :) [before this, I wrote 49 days in 2019, and 16 of those days were in December so.......]

DO YOU HAVE A ROUTINE FOR WRITING?

hahahaaaaaa. *laughs in ADHD*

no.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE KINKS/TROPES/PAIRING?

Kinks - emotionally charged kink. Show me how much they love each other and have them do real fucked up shit. But um, I guess crying/dacryphilia, shibari, breathplay, power exchange, spit, degradation, etc.

Trope - Enemies to Friends with Benefits to Lovers. Or Enemies to Lovers. Or FWB to Lovers. Those are all pretty bulletproof tropes for me. Dom/sub, particularly with really lovely and subtle undertones. Porn with feelings (I can’t really do PWP--it’s all about the feelings for me).

Pairing -  these days, Kliegooooo is... 90% of it. 5% Horrance. 5% Even Trio [someone, god, we need to come up with a shipname].

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FIC OF YOURS?

Well, my favourite ever is unfinished still and my next favourite hasn’t been posted...

But I guess these two:

step backward, step forward - the Main Fic as it were for the “Museum Curator Klaus” ‘verse. I just... I just really wanted to have these boys out there, living their best lives.

so, apparently, we’re doing this - I...... this is the most fucked up kink I’ve ever written, and for some reason, I just... I just really love this fic... I really love it. I can’t put my finger on why.... But I’ve reread my own fic a number of times XD

YOUR FIC WITH THE MOST KUDOS?

spaces on the wall - “write a cute kidfic where Steve and Bucky are both single dads,” I said. “Try not to write angst this time,” I said.

HA.

No, but this was the softest thing I’d written for Stucky fandom l o l

ANYTHING YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOUR WRITING?

Oof. Shall I list the ways?

Um, I’m trying to work on not tearing myself down as much, so I’d say my two biggest weaknesses are that I use a lot more words than I, perhaps, should/need. I also don’t seem to be able to characterise characters with the same confidence others do. Like, they’ll be able to say “Diego is X” and back it up, and have solid reasons behind it, and I just... don’t? I tend to view things from a lot of different angles and get very detailed about some things, but then miss the forest for the trees.

NOW SOMETHING YOU DO LIKE (ABOUT YOUR WRITING)?

I’m told I do emotions very well. I think I do really-emotional-porn well, and I think I do a really good job at writing kink that has a really strong undercurrent of they love each other so fucking much to it. I also... like that I am always trying to get better. I ask people for advice, even though I always doubt myself. I try to learn more things, and experiment with different styles. I may not always succeed, but I think perseverance is something to like about my writing.

ship tag game

First ship you ever read fic for: Daine/Numair

First ship you ever wrote fic for: Heh, Daine/Numair

Ship you write the most now: Diego/Klaus \o/!!!

Ship you read the most now: Diego/Klaus

Newest ship: hmmm, god, any of the siblings together. I think Diego/Vanya is one I’m rather enjoying rn.

Rare ship you want to read more of: Hmmm. Diego/Vanya??

Your taboo ship: ....I ship siblings, guys.

They never met in canon ship: ....I don’t have one.

Your unexpected ship: Um, basically any pairing that isn’t Kliego? Other than my Glee years, I’ve always been intensely monoshipper. Imagine my fucking shock when I started going “ooh Klaus/Ben! Diego/Klaus/Ben! Diego/Five! Luther/Diego! Diego/Allison! Diego/Vanya! Klaus/Vanya!” like. JFC. I didn’t expect any of these, okay???

The ship you always forget to give love to: Ummmmm. I.... don’t think I have any?

Ship your OC with a canon character (if applicable): Nope. My OCs are for me and me only.

Your most romantic ship:  Kliego?

Your sexiest ship: ...Kliego??

Your most tragic ship: Sheith or Stucky <3

A ship you want more content for: More Kliego that I actually fucking agree with. I mean... what?? Ummm.... >.> [No, seriously, there are some AMAZING writers in the TUA fandom; but there’s also some characterisation that I disagree with, and that’s okay! It just.... narrows things down a bit for me...]

Tagging: @emptydistractions12 @unrememberedskies; @electra-xt; @god-shuffled-his-feet; @rappaccini; anyone else who wants to do the thing! I had a bunch of you in mind, but given we appear to all be running in the same circles, I didn’t wanna tag everyone and.... >.>