#most of this was just me narratively wanking so i hope you love it

[phantomato]

for the choose violence ask game: 14, 18, and 24 for TLT!

Thank you so much!! I never get to go on about TLT here. 💖 From the ask game:

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

John dubconning or nonconning other characters. I get why it makes sense and I’ve written it too, but tbh I think it’s pretty feasible that he’s not like that. If he grew up in the social context that’s implied, he could be very self-conscious about sexual consent, actually! I could see a John who doesn’t have much sex and only accepts offers from people who are very, very clearly coming onto him (e.g. jizz heist). But yeah, I feel like I mostly see John engaging in consent-issues sex in fic.

Oh, and Third House fancy parties in pre-GtN fic. I would love to see Third House do something other than throw a gala.

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

OBVIOUSLY Silas/Colum. Yeah I get it, this is a majority f/f fandom, as it should be. But these two have such a sexy dynamic: loyalty/fealty, religious indoctrination, repression, a weird backward age gap (baby uncle!), they were literally bred for one another. It’s full of amazing potential to explore in a thousand different ways, and while I’d never expect it to be a top 10 ship, I think it’s a crime that its fans are so few. It seems like the popularity is hurt by the divisiveness of the Eighth house and perhaps that’s something that could be shifted by whatever happens in AtN.

I’ve got an idea for a setting-change AU fic which makes Silas and Colum the depraved Victorian family they were clearly meant to be and I’m going to try writing it next year. They’re just such a good ship and I hope that the fandom comes around on them. Also, Silas needs a fisting.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

Jod. 😬 I remember watching a wank go down last year about John and war crimes and it devolved into the sort of disgusting “liking a villain makes you morally suspect” comments that run me out of engaging with a fandom. I’m neutral to negative on John, despite wanting to have liked him more, but IMO he’s a very standard morally-complicated bad guy and not worth that kind of discourse. He did terrible things, we’re supposed to recognize that he’s not a cartoon and he had reasons for them, and the narrative handles that fine. But I’m going to hide from most mentions of John Gaius because wow, it gets bad.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Omg, thank you for replying to my ask. (*/ω＼*) Yay so excited to hear about your Lokane fic! Such a Heraklean effort! I have a similar problem with a novel-length WIP, actually near the same emotional peak and I really think it must be that last final push that's almost harder than anything else - in a way I don't want to finish mine! I had a similar rule about not starting other WIP's so I have a document where I've amassed everything I'm not writing, and that's helped me a little because it feels like I've 'done' something so I can do other stuff haha.

Regarding Solas/Lavellan: don't worry about a disappointing response, to be totally honest I was a bit worried you already didn't like it (though wanted to know what emotional chord didn't work for you), but the fact you're not familiar with it is almost kind of better!! It's one of those pairings for me that manages to hit the epic romance notes and actually consummate the romance and then affirm the narrative importance, which is already pretty hard to do with a video game (and often times I'm left disappointed by pairings grounded primarily in potential). I can't really reveal too much about Solas because learning about him is the journey but if you like your trickster god/vulnerability/concealed pain/the dinan'shiral (the Journey of Death) that love endures against etc. it's all there. A non-spoilery detail I like about him is that sometimes when he talks he speaks in iambic pentametre or the musical notes of Hallelujah, so there's a poeticism to him and subtlety to his character execution that I just love.

I think the only drawback to Solas/Lavellan is that because it's a game it's more of a time investment and you also need the Trespasser DLC for full effect, but honestly you can watch it on YouTube lol. There's a lot of lore that enhances the pairing as well. I don't think you need to really play the first two games to 'get it', but I generally enjoy Bioware games and I think they're both fun experiences. The Solas/Lavellan romance also doesn't have an awkwardly animated sex scene, if that puts you off like it does me, though it's not entirely lacking eroticism.

wank magnet tragic murder boy

I love this thank you hahahaha.

If you ever get around to playing Dragon Age or watching the romance on YouTube, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it, though my curiosity is now successfully sated! Thank you! (Hopefully my ask doesn't come off as pressuring you to get into it... mostly I'm just surprised/happy you didn't know much about it hahah!)

Also, as one final departing remark, yes, I'm actually the same regarding genuinely Nice Guy/Ingenue/Bad Boy, but I don't really gravitate towards that dynamic because it can come off as a bit superficial to me and I cannot STANDDDD love triangles unless it was only ever a matter of who she 'should' be with versus whom she really wants, it has to be true love soulmatism or I cry!!!

Hope you have a lovely day and good luck with fic writing!

Yeah, I pretty much know some memes about Solas and that he apparently betrays the PC somehow. And people debate his motives and level of sincerity a lot. But I know so little about the plot that I've forgotten most of the details I ever came across. Poetry is a selling point! but I really can't say whether I will vibe with the ship or not based on what I know. The sad murder boy really has to hit a specific way for me.

Yes, exactly! I feel exactly the same way about love triangles. I talked about this before, but I hate them unless they're the forgone conclusion kind where it's not about who she actually loves (because this is never in doubt), it's about whether she's going to choose love over pragmatism or whether true love will conquer outside circumstances, etc. I think it was in my first ramble about Fated to Love You, which is a great example. All three characters know Mi Young is in love with Gun, the tension is always about whether they will overcome both the internal and external obstacles separating them and take the risk for true love or if she'll settle for playing it safe in a platonic pseudo-relationship with Daniel where her heart can't be broken.

If there's genuinely romantic feelings for more than one person and the middle point is not just in denial about where their heart lies, I'm out lol.

Ditto! ;)

[bleachbleachbleach]

For @canariie​! <3

I hope this isn’t read with any aggression or antipathy toward Kubo or Klub or anything else, because I have neither aggression nor antipathy about this. This response is going to be a long way of saying “Kubo doesn’t matter to me, so I often ignore him,” but I feel like that requires a disclaimer and some additional explanation or else I feel like it comes across as embittered and rage-y and I promise it’s neither. I am extremely neutral about this, I have a pH of 7 about this. XDDD

But my approach to fandom and fannish stuff is like... in “real life” you have to pay attention to and care about basically everything, even if you think it is silly and not worth the time. But if something is a hobby and for fun, then you’re under no such obligation. Given that free time is at an extreme premium, I try not to spend it on things that aren’t interesting to me. This goes for wank and shipwars and whatever, sure; but it also applies to pieces of canon that aren’t interesting to me, and it includes authorial paratexts like Kubo’s Klub thing. Because do I feel any particular reverence for things Kubo says? No, I do not. XD I think about Kubo, in any capacity, vanishingly little.

And where new paratexts are concerned, my view is that once a work has been published, it’s entered the afterlife of its text (citation: the ghost of Walter Benjamin). Particularly in a fannish space, it’s in the hands of its readers as much as its writer, and it is going to become a thousand things as it is translated through this community of readers (and in our case, literal translations too). Kubo’s paratexts aren’t by default any more important to me than someone else’s headcanons (and I say this with SO MUCH LOVE for many of Kubo’s paratexts, like Colorful Bleach! and a lot of love for the “non-canon,” like the anime filler arcs). In my thinking, I’m going to privilege whichever ones I find most interesting.

Kubo says in a locked forum that Hitsugaya is older than Hinamori? That’s not interesting to me. Slush pile-->Ignore. (For that matter, “Hitsugaya had bankai before entering Academy” or whatever the other one was? Deeply uninteresting to me. Slush pile-->Ignore.)

If, for fanfic purposes or something, I felt I had no choice but to bring Klub into the discussion, I’d probably just go the “Hitsugaya had been in Rukongai longer, growing up in slow long Rukongai time, and then Hinamori came over after him,” which I think is a fairly typical interpretation. But the Klub response itself, to me, manages to both foreclose interesting narratives while introducing ones that I find less interesting, so I primarily just ignore it.

*Your* thoughts (and this nonfictional environmental book), however, I am VERY INTERESTED IN AND VERY MUCH WANT TO READ. I am so looking forward to your post!!!

For the anniversary ask: how do you think the aging of Shinigami works?

@jiyle asked a variation of the same, so I will count this answer for both!

As you both know, there are lots of different shinigami aging theories out there, which I think is fabulous. Here’s mine!

I. BIOLOGY

How does shinigami aging work? My first impulse was not to try too hard to analogize it to human aging. I mean, how old is Lightning McQueen in human years? He’s a car, so why not just imagine him in car years? As someone who owns a car that is the same age as the cinematic masterpiece, Pixar's Cars, "16-year old car" carries a lot of meaning that is untranslatable to an approximate human age.

But maybe shinigami aging is more similar to human aging than it first appears. Sure, shinigami aging is wacky and non-linear, but so is human aging. Human aging sees periods of rapid development, and also periods of (seeming) stasis. Aging approximates different mathematical functions at different points in a person’s life.

Generally speaking, that seems to describe what we see of shinigami aging pretty decently, too. It seems like the three main distinctions between shinigami and human aging are:

Shinigami live longer lol.

Shinigami periods of development and stasis are more pronounced. Rather than just having their aging streeeeetched to fit the length of their lifespan, their periods of development are more acute/extreme.

Human aging is more readily generalizable to a population, whereas shinigami seem more variable. We have the Academy Kids + Hitsugaya more or less getting older at some kind of regular interval, even if maybe they are not quite exactly the same interval. But we also have Unohana. And Shinji, for that matter, lopsided man of mystery.

As for more specifics? Meh. People in Seireitei probably age differently than those in Rukongai. Shinigami probably age differently than non-shinigami souls. (Which I imagine could make for some interesting family dynamics!) The reiryoku you possess probably plays a role here, and perhaps even its expression as reiatsu plays a separate one. I think there are a lot of variables to play with here and I take a plot of pleasure in that. To add to the variables, I’m frankly not convinced that time is even linear in Soul Society, nor am I convinced that time (and space) are uniform ACROSS Soul Society.

One last thought to close this section: If we want to imagine the biological age of a shinigami, particularly a Captain-class shinigami, what analogy is most appropriate? Do we analogize age in terms of humanity? That thing shinigami echo/ghost? Or is it more appropriate to imagine their life milestones like those of a star, a ball of incredible and otherworldly energy?

The Hell Arc seems to strongly imply that the Gotei did not think about this. Or at least, possibly not enough.

--

Below the cut: Shinigami theories of development, age as an identity category and its relative importance (or lack thereof), and how human interaction might impact these ideas.

--

II. CULTURE

Because their biological age is harder to meaningfully quantify, I feel like it’s probably even less important, culturally, to shinigami than it is to us. As age approaches infinity, what is one millennium, or two? Things like your class/rank/reiatsu classification seem like they would be infinitely more relevant for anyone trying to figure out who you are, or how to interact with you. (Imagine GoteiMingle… instead of A/S/L you give your rank/gender/division. What a miserable little website, LOL.)

I think it’s also worth thinking about what Soul Society’s conceptions of these different, less culturally relevant life stages would be, since for humans, the concept of "childhood" (what it is, what ages it covers, why it matters) is already historically variable. Soul Society does seem to mostly acknowledge that children are different than adults, so there’s that. (Maybe because of the preponderance of ghost children they deal with?). Yoruichi understands Byakuya as an adolescent in TBTP, and Kyouraku and Ukitake express similar sensibilities in the Beast Swords arc.

But it also seems like Soi Fon is Yoruichi’s vassal before she’s understood is a child, and I imagine Byakuya is family head-in-training before he is a child, too.

This is an oversimplification, but in the Edo period, childhood/adulthood were understood as particular social stages demarcated by coming-of-age ceremonies. These did roughly align with biological age, though children transitioned into "adulthood" somewhere between ages 13 and 20 (in the scheme of things, a pretty broad range). As a child, you got to play and socialize. But you were also already understood to be in-training to become a samurai, or a merchant, or a priest, or family head, or marriageable, or whatever; and then you became that thing. You weren’t an adult because you turned 18, or 20, but because you acquired the ability to do adult work. (And/or your paranoid family really needed you, at age 3, to be family head, LOL. But let’s ignore those cases.)

This seems to track with Soul Society’s sensibilities, in the sense that shinigami adulthood would be less about your biological age than about having completed training (e.g. Academy). I’m not saying that this is how you *should* see things; I just think it’s likely that this is how they do. In a world where rank and/or class supersedes all, and adulthood is defined as the ability to do adult work, if you’re employed then you’re an adult. 

Like, I don’t think shinigami by and large see Hitsugaya as a child. We don't generally tend to see his authority questioned (at least in formal situations; antics happen in a different register). He probably did intentional work for this, yeah, but it’s not as though his youth were this insurmountable obstacle to achieving respect as a captain. I feel like most shinigami probably don’t go around thinking "what is this child doing here"; and moreover, they also probably don’t even think, even in a neutral way, "that one is a child." He's a captain.

Ironically, the two people who don’t ever seem to get on board with this* are Ichigo and Aizen, with Ichigo calling him "Toushirou" and Aizen calling him "Hitsugaya-kun" (both when they are celebrating birthdays AND when Aizen is repainting the Council of 46 chambers with fresh blood). Because, well, Aizen is an asshole, and Ichigo is on his own planet and has clear ideas about how that planet works, LOL. Which is fine because it’s a great planet.

And I think all of this can be true without having to be completely blind to Hitsugaya’s biological age, whatever it may be. He knows he’s young, and tends to be upfront about that as long as that’s not taken to be synonymous with not being an adult.

In Chapter 80 Renji refers to him as 例の天才児 (rei no tensaiji), or "the model child prodigy." Mildly derisive, but I’m pretty sure it’s the "model" part rather than the "child" part that Renji finds annoying. (Though the Viz omits both of these, so perhaps they had a different opinion, XD.)

In Chapter 208, Shawlong Qufong also describes Hitsugaya as 幼い (osanai), "young," in the sense of not being fully-developed, which he links grammatically to a description of Hitsugaya’s bankai. I think it’s intended more a statement of fact than it is an insult—osanai doesn’t have an inherently negative connotation, though maybe it’s worth mentioning that it appears to evoke the idea of literal babies more than say, a young man or even a young boy.

AND SURE, what does Shawlong know about shinigami. What does Shawlong know about anything? But I think we can throw Shawlong a bone and take this to mean that Hitsugaya’s biological age is unambiguously young. But in spite of this, it may not be functionally relevant or "read" socially in shinigami day-to-day.

* NB: Hinamori is in her own category!! And omake Ukitake, who I'll reference later. There’s also the bathhouse lady from Shinigami Cup 74, who reads Hitsugaya as a child in spite of the fact that they are in the Seireitei (I assume—how far would Hitsugaya have agreed to walk with all their paperwork in hand??) and he is literally wearing his Captain’s haori. I think about her all the time. She keeps me up at night. 

III. HUMANITY

This isn’t to say that referencing someone’s youth can’t be done derogatorily. Byakuya shouts at Ichigo during their big pre-execution fight, and called him 小僧 (kozou), "boy." Which I mean, Ichigo is literally… 15… And Byakuya is what, more than 10x that?

More to the point, I think it’s really interesting to think about how shinigami specifically think about human age, too. All humans are younger than anyone in the main cast, and the Karakura Kids are BABIES. But they are also human adolescents, on the cusp of childhood and adulthood at once, and I imagine that’s often baffling and/or fascinating to the shinigami. I mean, I think Ichigo is baffling to Soul Society for a lot of reasons, LOL, but this would be another one for the bingo card.

Additionally, during the Edo period, the concept of adolescence as a "thing" was kind of on-again, off-again, and inasmuch as we can play with Soul Society’s Edo references that one seems fun to me, in terms of whether or not a shinigami believes that there’s anything between childhood and adulthood. Especially when you think about what the modern vs. Edo expectations of different biological ages and their relationship to adulthood might be. And ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY when you think about the ways those differences are countered by the fact that they are living a manga series, and fifteen-year olds in manga series are a whole other Thing. I mean, even in the most slice-of-life corner of Bleach, half of Ichigo’s friends are living independently at 15!

I’m also interested in shifting ideas of childhood in Soul Society as a result of ongoing contact with the human world. Being a shinigami is by and large defined by services rendered. It’s in the name! And if you’re not doing that, then what are you doing. But if you’re an "adult" after six measly years of Academy, potentially for thousands of years, and being an adult is defined by doing work, I imagine it’s difficult to remember what childhood even is, or what forms of play/pleasure/curiosity were part of it (and perhaps should still be cultivated, even on the other side of the divide). I know they have clubs and whatnot, but I don’t think that means this difficulty does not exist. Does contact with the human world help? (Or do they just end up ferrying a bunch of extremely sad overworked salarymen ghosts across like, "That’s rough, buddy.")

Did the development of children’s literature as a form inspire Ukitake’s "Sougyo’s Refusal!" serialization? What about his (somewhat haphazard) gifts of candy? The fact that he actually knows everyone’s birthdays and puts them into the SC? Is this the way Ukitake, as a thousanty-something year-old shinigami, courts modernity?

[light-of-judgment]

Zombie AU starter for @oflockhearted

Under the cut because #longlongpost

The fall from grace that accompanied the God of Magic’s defeat at the hands of the Returners was likely sweet relief for the world at large, but it was also relief for the fallen God himself. Defeat meant death and death meant rest. He fell. His tower fell. He was buried underneath the monument to nothingness that had been the symbol of his rage-filled existence and the world was able to breathe.

Residents from the town of Thamasa (descendants of the Magi, who’d built the town 1000 years prior to escape persecution for their magical abilities) partook in a ceremony to seal the tomb of the God, drawing defensive glyphs and performing rites to ensure that he would never awaken again in fear that Kefka truly had become an immortal Divine. Kefka’s defeat signified the disappearance of magic from this world, though the Magi weren’t going to take chances with it. The rest of the people, however, were able to sleep much easier at night knowing he was gone. 

The disappearance of magic may have seemed a good sign to many, especially those that liked to recount the War of the Magic and feared the potential for history to repeat itself. They were loud in their declarations after Kefka’s defeat, as though the existence of a Mad God outweighed the proven good that magic had brought to society. Conveniently, they never spoke of how Kefka had obtained the power in the first place. No one ever did. And overtime, he became a reference parents made to frighten their children or a name uttered to make a scary story that much more threatening. Over generations, he was forgotten, as was the need for magic at all.

What the disappearance of magic actually meant was that he was healing. All of the magic left in the world concentrated into him and slowly, for the world had been leeched dry in his destruction, grew over time while he rested.

Time passed, as it always does, and the world had healed again. The lands were fertile, the water was pure, the people were happy. Magic flourished, though by now the Magi were long gone and had long since stopped bestowing knowledge about their practices to their family. Why would they when there was no magic? That didn’t save them when the day came that someone was looking for it.

The Shinra Power Company of Midgar, a place no one on Kefka’s world would have heard of, had recently built a device capable to bringing them to other worlds. At the head of this project, a man named Hojo, who’s lust for power through experimentation seemed to have no equal. The purpose (and justification) to building such a thing would give them access to nearly limitless resource and possibility for knowledge and they’d begun sending excavation teams to different lands where the data showed the potential was great. This particular world seemed to be overflowing with energy. Hojo wanted the source. 

The team was able to reach the area with the greatest concentration of energy fairly quickly though one or two members hesitated at the sight of the warning glyphs. No one knew what they’d uncover and so, it was decided that they would retrieve the glyphs as well. With that, they began to dig. When they uncovered the pale man wrapped in the massive wings, the sensors they carried shorted out and they knew he was the source of the energy. He looked damaged but untouched by age. He was warm. It was as though he was simply resting. They carried him back to the lab and delivered him to the scientist, who immediately began to run tests on him to figure out exactly what he was and what he was capable of. His body was washed and examined and his blood was drawn. Samples were taken from his nails, hair, and wings. He was locked in a cage like an animal.

Kefka barely remembered any of that happening but he did have flashes of it. He vaguely recalled the feeling of being dragged out from the earth and being bathed in hot water. He struggled but had flashes of a blond man and a scientist arguing loudly about him but he didn’t know what they were saying. He recalled feeling a needle being pressed into him...no...several needles. What had they put inside of him? He remembered the feeling of laying naked in the small cage. But now, when Kefka finally opened his eyes, he felt the cold steel of a table under his back and the tightness of restraints on his wrists. He was drowsy, but aware and he had no idea where he was.

There were voices outside the room that he could just barely make out and he looked to one side to see the large window. There was that blond man again. There was the scientist. Why were they fighting? He grunted, trying to pull from the restraints, trying to break out. When he realized it wasn’t working, he glanced at the two again and saw them both staring at him with wide eyes. They knew he was awake now. Shit. 

Hojo was more than annoyed with Rufus Shinra at this point. The man was simply too much of a coward to see what kind of opportunity they had here and he wanted all kinds of information, that was frankly none of his business, about the experiment before Hojo could proceed. Hojo had discovered that this man...creature...whatever, was a God and the potential that unlocked in his twisted mind was almost more than he could handle. His blood had the potential to completely override their reliance on Mako. His abilities had the potential for weaponization. Hojo would give Shinra what he wanted but not until he understood more. Though now this thing was awake and he needed to proceed. He picked up his table saw and moved to the subject.

“Don’t try to fight it. You’ve been drugged,” he declares to his new plaything as he moves to observe the other. “I suppose I should be bowing in the presence of divinity, but I’m afraid I’m an atheist. Though I must say that I’m absolutely tickled to have someone as legendary as Kefka Palazzo himself to toy with.” He plugged the saw in.

How did-

Kefka stared at this strange man with utter confusion on his face and it was enough to make the scientist laugh. He certainly did enjoy seeing the powerful helpless.

“There will be time enough for questions later, I assure you, my precious Divine. But for now, I’m behind schedule and so looking forward to mounting one of those big wonderful wings in my office once I’m done draining it.” He flips his protective mask down and turns the saw on, the whine of it cutting through the otherwise silent room as the team of assistants stop to observe him. Then Hojo rushes forward and presses the blade to the stem of one of the wings.

White hot pain rushes through the mage and blood begins to spray everywhere as he begins to scream out in blinding pain and fury. Kefka’s fists clench and his eyes roll back. His feathers harden and sharpen like razors and slice through the restraints. Hojo yells for an assistant to hold him down as the saw screeches when it connects with metal and inevitably begins to overheat and die. The God is panting when the cutting finally stops and he looks to either side of him before giving one giant beat of his wings. The razor feathers fly everywhere, stabbing the men around him, seemingly in an effort to make them all drop.

It wasn’t. 

Hojo is laughing at the incident and looks straight at the God, who has a smirk on his face that he just wants to wipe off.

“You think dropping my assistants and guards will stop this? You must not be as-AAHH!” His statement is interrupted as he’s attacked suddenly by one of his assistants, who seemed to be utterly crazed and trying to tear Hojo’s throat open with his teeth. All of the people in the room that had been hit were acting like this. Kefka looks over toward the window again just in time to see the blond man fleeing in a panic. He focuses on the chaos surrounding him breathes deeply, seemingly melding through the restraints to free himself. The last he ever sees of the crazed scientist as he leaves the room, is the sight of him being torn apart by the people he’d once ordered around. 

With the door opened, the creatures run free through the building, attacking anyone in site. Those that manage to get away don’t understand that a scratch or a bite won’t simply heal. They’ll turn soon enough. Kefka walks calmly through the corridors as the alarms blare around him and the people flee, chased by these creatures. It isn’t long before they’re escaping from the building and out into the streets. It only takes a half hour for the alarms in the city to start going off. By the time night falls, Kefka gazes out the windows of the executive suite of Shinra tower and sees the fires being set in the distance and the flashing of gunfire. He’s dressed himself in familiar silks and robes and he’s drinking a large glass of wine.

Perhaps this world would provide entertainment for some time. 

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hello! If you don't mind me asking, are you planning on watching House of the Dragon? I'm personally unsure about it. I was cautiously optimistic about it since D&D are not involved, but the recent casting news have been ugh disappointing imo. What do you think?

Hey anon! Sorry to say I kind of mind you asking because my inbox is still closed (to everyone except my secret Santas, which is why the ask page is accessible at all), but then I realized it’s possible if you’re on the mobile app only, you haven’t seen said note in my askbox, or my FAQ, or anything of the sort. And with older metas of mine being reblogged recently, it’s possible you may be confused. (I hope you’re on mobile only and not just ignoring my requests.) So I wanted to inform you of that... but also, y’know, I kind of wanted to make a post about the HotD cast anyway? And this ask is as good a prompt as any... so, you’re lucky, but please don’t push your luck. ;)

So, straight up: I currently have no plans to watch House of the Dragon. HBO is not getting any of my goddamn money, I don’t trust like that. And hunting down illegal livestreaming sites is a pain in the ass and I regret ever doing it for GoT, as well as regretting getting drunk every weekend enough to dampen my senses to ever tolerate that show. Yeah it’s different showrunners and writers, I know. It’s still (mostly) the same executives at HBO and even if the pervert producer is gone (or is he?), you know they still just want to sell sex and violence and dragons to an audience that thinks fantasy is for geeks.

Also, considering that Fire & Blood’s story of Dance of the Dragons has very little actual narrative or dialogue, and the historical record is deliberately untrustworthy, that gives them pretty much full rein to do whatever they like with the story and characterization and words without even being slightly obliged to GRRM at all. Furthermore, since the story is wholly political with virtually none of the magical side of ASOIAF (excepting dragons), and honestly does not have much in the way of themes or depth that main ASOIAF or even D&E has, I think it will be very hard for an adaptation to show even those brief sparks of quality that used to make me wistful GoT couldn’t be that good all the time and eventually just made me frustrated and depressed. Note I do like the history and characters of the Dance despite myself, despite its many many many textual issues, but I don’t need to see an adaptation, I have a very visual imagination. I don’t watch a lot of television to begin with, I don’t see why I should start again with this.

However, I’m not going to avoid spoilers or discussion, and I’ll probably follow the show the tumblr way, through gifsets and video clips and people bitching on their blogs etc. If, somehow, by some miracle of good screenwriting and acting, the show manages to transcend its source material, I’m sure I will be informed. And then, if and only if then, I may try watching. (Without, of course, giving HBO any of my goddamn money.) We shall see.

(Though I certainly don’t know why anyone in Targ standom would ever watch a Dance adaptation considering almost every Targaryen and everyone else in the story is terrible except Helaena and the kids, and considering how the story ends, unless y’all are gluttons for punishment? (I do not comprehend hatewatching, sorry.) It’ll probably be fun at first to see the adventures of those “precious silver douchebags” (to borrow a friend’s tag), but eventually rocks fall, everyone dies, including the girlboss you know you’ll hope the story will be changed enough that she succeeds. Just letting you know now, she won’t.)

That said. I’ve been following the casting news and I think the hate/fear/wild screaming is entirely overblown. Yeah, I know, but wait, just listen. On Friday I officially welcomed @naomimakesart to the “favorite character is now played by an actor who looks nothing like most fanart and is mostly known for wildly different roles” club. I still remember that day in September 2009 when my brother texted me “yarp”... and that right there is the thing. Yeah. Rory McCann looks very little like most pre-GoT Sandor fanart... but many fans grew to love him anyway. (There are some who never did, of course. And yeah the character went off the rails by the end, but truly, who didn’t. Having seen his audition, having spoken to him and heard him wistfully talk about book scenes he loved, I’m convinced if Rory had only been given Sandor’s actual scenes and such, he would’ve killed it. Sigh. Deep, deep sigh.)

And Rory isn’t the only one. Neither of the actors for Jaime and Cersei were considered “beautiful” enough at first. I recall very clearly people bitching about Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (about his nose particularly?) because they had wanted Tarzan-era Travis Fimmel to be Jaime. (Seeing people bitch because current-Fimmel isn’t playing Daemon made me laugh out loud for both BEYONCE?! meme -type “why would you ever cast him omg he doesn’t fit my headcanon Daemon at all”, and amazing amounts of fandom flashbacks.) Lena Headey was “too square-jawed”, “too mean-looking” (since at the beginning you should never be able to guess she’s evil), “too dark-complected”, “too mannish”, not at all attractive enough. (Tricia Helfer was the most common “but I wanted” for Cersei, btw.) And of course “they don’t remotely look like twins, ugh!” Note, there’s receipts for all of this, none of it is made up. (Unfortunately.) Those two actors are just the ones whose casting wank I recall most clearly, particularly because oh how the turn tables.

Also. You know, there’s a post with Matt Smith and Mark Simonetti’s TWOIAF Daemon going around with shrieks of horror... and I’m finding it maddening in a “am I crazy? am I  the crazy one???” way, because Matt looks like the painting. Their features are not that dissimilar.

Same deepset eyes. Same cheekbones of doom. Same thin lips. Same protruding chin. Same high forehead. Same invsible eyebrows ffs. Matt has a squarer jaw, and a longer more rectangular face, and a wider nose, but considering that Daemon’s features are not described in the text, and this is the only official ASOIAF artwork that shows Daemon’s face straight on, I can for sure see why he was probably shortlisted to begin with. And that’s not even getting into to his role in The Crown, which I’ve heard is very well played with politics and palace intrigue... and if you doubt Smith can play seductive/roguish and/or evil (depending on how you LARP as a Westeros historian), or look good with long hair... well. I do not want to watch the movie, but this trailer is disturbingly enlightening.

And as for Rhaenyra... y’all know this show is starting at the beginning of the story, right? When she’s a teenager? Not a voluptuous MILF? Yeah, Emma D’Arcy doesn’t look like a Magali Villeneueve painting (though who does, good lord), but you know who she does look remarkably like? Harry Lloyd.

Same jawline. Same nose. Same thin lips. Same sharp cheekbones. Notably, same kind of sharp cheekbones and deep-set eyes as Matt Smith. HBO evidently has a concept of a “Targaryen look” that’s a little bit quirkier than supermodel-Greek statue-gods on earth, yeah, fine. But it’s consistent, and they look like family, and that-- that is good casting.

And yeah, in a few months to a year or so, you’ll see them in costume and wigs and makeup, you’ll see them in motion and speaking lines, and go Oh. That’s different. Never mind. And while people will make fanart of the show depictions of the characters and those will probalby get popular, they’ll also keep doing fanart of their pre-show headcanons, and those too will be popular. (God knows when I draw or visualize book!Sandor, Rory does not come to mind, lol.) Either way, there’s no reason to panic. We’ll live.

(Though will we live well? Got to wait on the writing and showrunning for that, alas.)

[dotthings]

Still on a break from twitter but I had a quick look at some brosonly threads this morning and OMG THE DESPERATION, THE INANE LOGIC TANGLE, THE REACHING those accounts are doing to try to tell themselves Destiel isn’t real while they rock back and forth thinking if they cover their eyes and sing loud enough that’ll make it go away. A few are a bit more astute and have tiredly conceded there’s gonna be some textual content for it and they’re unhappy about it but there it is.

Mostly the antis are frantically spinning their wheels on stan twitter going “but director who hasn’t been on the show for a zillion years! But that outdated thing Jensen said that time even though he doesn’t control story, and I’m going to ignore all the other things Jensen said that contradict me, but let me trot out the same expired gif over and over and over GAME SET AND MATCH SUCK IT DESTIELS” or bring up for the 1000th time ancient wank that happened a zillion years ago, under a different showrunner, and ignore statements from producers and writers that actually support the Destiel or bi Dean reading, and pretend that anybody with any authority over story ever said “destiel is never happening” even though that never happened, and “but this other fandom did this weird thing therefore all Destiel meta writers are maliciously ruining people’s lives!!!” 

I can’t even tell you how my heart sinks when Destiel shippers buy into the anti’s crack-on-stick narrative. It’s there to hurt you, it’s there to demoralize you, it’s there to stir the pot and cause pointless repetitive arguments and increase the tensions between Destiel shippers and cast/crew/writers.

What most Destiel positive meta writers do:

TALK ABOUT WHAT THE CANON IS DOING

STATE THIS IS NO GUARANTEE IT WILL BE OPEN CANON, PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ANYONE IF THERE IS NO KISSING 

BUT WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE STORY AS IS AS IT UNFOLDS BECAUSE THE WRITERS ARE TRYING TO WRITE A LOVE STORY DESPITE RESTRICTIONS

How many more times do we have to repeat ourselves before it sinks in?

The whole thing is hilaribad yet also oddly delightful witnessing the anti-destiel lane lose its shit. I’m feeling pretty validated by that right now, how about some of the other meta writers? *sips tea*

How the f^ck is it misleading to go “there’s no guarantees and we wish the industry was better about this or that we could offer some assurance of full openly acknowledge canon but we can’t, here are the things the writers room is actually doing to do a coded love story that has hit some textual level material in the current era of spn so please reconsider your cynical attacks towards the writers trying to give you this love story despite decisions above their pay grade.”

It’s not coincidence that the current crop of positive Destiel meta writers aren’t waiting for a sex scene or a kiss or media headlines and are NOT the ones who are angry and attacking the writers over our ship. We maybe have a little candle lit for a hand-hold or a verbal penny drop *open* acknowledgment but that’s long shot. We understand not everyone is going to be content with that. What we aren’t doing is IGNORING THE FREAKIN’ CANON STORY or attacking the people who write it. 

Yet somehow it’s the fault of Destiel positive meta writers that people are bitter, attack the cast/crew/writers. We’re really mean if we give anyone hope...by pointing out the actual canon so maybe more shippers can just...enjoy the love story in the style SPN is telling it. It’s not going to win awards for open representation, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an actual part of the canon.

Please try to shut out that noise. 

[beneaththebrim]

TGCF Ep 3-4 reactions/rants

Am I doing these in twos? :) Or was I too unremittingly :) anxious :) last week about [redacted] to make a post?

whatever let’s go spoilers spoilers

Episode 3

SO many things that I didn’t notice while reading that become apparent via the visual medium--like how Feng Xin repeats “So she was a bitter and vindictive bride” to Xie Lian--the FORESHADOWING,, ah, good stuff good stuff

the horror elements are great just wanna say

RUOYE GOOD

Ling Wen knows it all DAMN RIGHT SHE DOES

Love the sound design for Xuan Ji and how her resentment manifests physically in the animation, don’t love her character--unfortunately these first two arcs of tgcf really do lean back on these sexist (ghost bridegroom arc) and racist/Islamophobic (Banyue arc) caricatures--hope it doesn’t stifle the international popularity of tgcf as a whole, given that the first season of the donghua will probably only get to just the end of the Banyue arc, but I’d definitely understand if it turned ppl off (I get the feeling that these issues that are more subtle in written form are more apparent in audiovisual media--granted, I haven’t actually seen much discourse on twitter outside my own circle about the Banyue arc even though the manhua is near the end of it, soooo...)

(somehow bc tumblr feels so much more like a ghost town lately I’m more open to posting wank and unadulterated opinions here :P which I’d be more careful about on twitter)

BUT YEAH MAN I MEAN THE STRONGEST ARCS IN TGCF DON’T START UNTIL LIKE BOOK 2 WHEN I THINK BACK ON IT

Book 1 seems to mainly exist to quickly introduce everyone and ship tease ship tease ship tease to suck ppl in

Little Ying :’(

oh there he is, the imperialist symbol, with his imperial background music

I’m sorry I don’t like Pei Su at all

mmmm do love the narrative parallels of Ping Ming reacting to a woman about to slit her own throat

LMAO THE SEXY CANDLE SILHOUETTE SCENE

WHY AM I REMINDED OF THE ROOM

hey can hualian have one of those bilibili just how much can you imply eh

like what about when Hua Cheng goes ghost!feral in book 3 and Xie Lian has to suppress him by blowing kissing him could we also have sexy candle silhouette scene for that

OH MY GOD THAT MONTAGE IS THE CHEESIEST. HETEROSEXUALS ARE YOU OKAY

it is good that in the end Xie Lian’s like ‘can’t judge as an outsider’ w the implication that we are really only getting two unreliable narrator sides of the story (even tho the story ends up implying that pei ming was for the most part in the right)

Pei Ming is an interesting character imo, bc he has a very consistent moral code, which puts him on various different sides throughout the story. I don’t really blame him so much for his sleaziness as I do for his corruption (sorry I don’t like Shi Wudu either) and how he pressured Pei Su to military glory (leading to a genocide of the Banyuese). do agree with leila (don’t think she has a tumblr?) that he should have suffered more in his character arc of slowly learning to respect women tho (whereas Pei Su suffered but didn’t really have a character arc, unless ‘dating Ban Yue against Pei Ming’s wishes’ counts as a character arc)

okay here’s the thing

here’s the thing

you can go on and on about not liking a character and you can dig up tons of receipts of them doing bad things to justify your dislike

but what you’ll find after a while is that the people who do like that character aren’t wrong either, bc they can also pull up tons of ways they did admirable things or had interesting motivations

after a while you just realize it comes down to vibes

like Pei Ming’s awful, but later on I just find myself positively enjoying that chauvinistic pig. And Shi Wudu has good motivations/his actions are p typical ‘just vindictive god things uwu✨ ‘ but to me, his vibes are positively rancid and I just cannot like that bourgeois pig

this is why it’s important to take Taixi Dianxia’s advice 😌

(or be like Mu Qing and just judge absolutely everyone)

(most of all himself :’) )

OH HERE WE GO AGAIN DISRESPECTING MU QING

HE IS RIGHT

if he didn’t get reinforcements they would have to clean up the bodies on their own GOD no one considers logistics

it’s just Ling Wen and Mu Qing running heaven for real

😂  oh my god I love fengqing

YASSSS BAI WUXIANGGGGG

OOF ngl that’s some good-ass cutting between Xie Lian being reminded about the fall of Xian Le and the clip of Ruoye’s origin in the EC (WHY DONGHUA TEAM WHY)

Episode 4

One thing I was never fully clear on was whether Bai Wuxiang placed the piece of his soul onto Lang Ying like, right after his death? or if Jun Wu put it on him when Xie Lian takes him up to heaven later

actually I never read the edited version of tgcf maybe mxtx made that point more clear

MU QING STOP BEING TRANSPHOBIC CHALLENGE

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK THE PILES OF SCROLLS

Ling Wen of all the corrupt evil ass bitches in heaven you are the one I will never blame for being corrupt and evil

lmao everyone being like “bruh” when Xie Lian’s like “ah, Hua Cheng, what a nice name for the helpful youngster” 😂

LMAOOOOOO LOVE THAT QI RONG IS THE KIND OF ATTRACTIVE THAT ONLY QI RONG STANS WILL FIND ATTRACTIVE

mallgoth ass bitch

FISH

FISH

FISH MAN YES

(He Xuan is sexy in exactly the kind of way that He Xuan stans find sexy which is Actually the objective standard of sexiness I’m sorry I don’t make the rules)

I mean he’s being voiced by Wu Lei who no doubt is gonna give it the full Yan Wushi, again, I don’t make the rules

interesting how Jun Wu is facing camera but tilting the mask so you can only see the crying side--to ppl who don’t know who he is it looks like he’s turned to the side and his head is kinda incorporeal, whereas to ppl in the know you can see him towering over you

I like that you can kinda see through Xie Lian’s expression & tone that his gears are turning, how there must have been something significant about the 35 officials Hua Cheng challenged, and he even already suspected Mu Qing & Feng Xin were the two who didn’t accept

LMAO PEI SU THINKING HUA CHENG AND QI RONG ARE WORKING TOGETHER this is like centrist Democrats who are like, “well I think that it’s the socialists who ultimately helped [redacted] win in 2016″

NO QI RONG IS NOT BERNIE SANDERS IN THAT ANALOGY

I’M SORRY QI RONG STANS BUT QI RONG IS NOT THE SOCIALIST ICON YOU THINK HE IS

ALTHOUGH I ADMIT THE OTHER FIGURE IN MY COMPARISON WAS KINDA HARSH QI RONG ISN’T ACTUALLY THAT BAD

pfffft all of Ling Wen’s miserable employees

awwwwww fengqing helped their f-f-friend out owo

Ling Wen’s like “Wait! You were supposed to ask His Majesty for help and become completely dependent on him! No, Your Highness, he’s gonna take it out on me now!” 🤧

YES MY FAVORITE LINE STAYED

“Collecting scraps is better than ascending” :)

AAAAND THERE HE IS. THE BOY.

I like how Hua Cheng has a kind of know-it-all, nerdy arrogant voice, it does fit San Lang and I think it will be a nice contrast when we finally see him as Hua Cheng

WELL THAT’S IT HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH GHOSTFUCKERS

[luthienebonyx]

2020 Writing in Review

Total number of completed stories: Four (not counting tumblr ficlets and such)

Total word count: Somewhere in the region of 150k

Fandoms written in: Game of Thrones, Queen’s Thief - Megan Whalen Turner, and Friday’s Child - Georgette Heyer.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? In 2019 I wrote almost 230k in seven months. I knew there was no way I’d be that prolific in 2020. As it turned out, I was right, but for the wrong reasons. I did start off the year writing at a slower pace than the last, but then 2020 happened to me in several different ways at once and I didn’t write at all for three months. But THEN I got my writing mojo back and wrote 50k between the beginning of November and the end of December so... I don’t know. It definitely wasn’t expected, whatever else you call it.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? There were two stories that I absolutely LOVED writing, and I can’t choose between them, so I’ll talk about both.

The first happened completely by accident. In October, I read all six of the Queen’s Thief novels by Megan Whalen Turner, and to my surprise the narrator of book 5 grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let up until I’d written a story for him. That ended up taking the whole of November, and became Twelve Days. It was a very different story from anything I’d written recently: first person, spare(ish) style, slash, and a very, VERY distinctive narrative voice. I think Chapter 9 was probably the best bit of writing I’d done in a while.

However, at the beginning of December I had finished Twelve Days, and so started work on That Greek Thing - which is the second story I want to talk about. It is for the novel Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer and is a story I’ve had in the back of my mind to write for literally twenty years. It also has a very distinctive narrative voice, but in a completely different way from Twelve Days. i’d wanted to write Heyer fic for years and never quite got up the nerve. This time, I finally wrote not just a Heyer fic, but this particular Heyer fic, and I loved every moment of writing it. Heyer’s style is very, VERY different from MWT’s, so it took me a little while to move mentally from one to the other, but once I got into the groove of it... 

That Greek Thing wound up being 22k compared to Twelve Days’ 24k, but written in half the time. I mean, the fact that I was also writing the Heyer fic for Yuletide and so I was writing to a deadline also helped speed things along... But yeah, I’d been talking about writing that fic for 20 years, and I think it actually did turn out to be the story that I wanted it to be and hoped it would be.

Did you take any writing risks this year? I wrote slash for the first time in nine years (Twelve Days), and then I wrote another slash story (That Greek Thing) right after. Not a risk, exactly, but certainly a change from what I’ve been writing for a while now. I guess writing in first-person was a bit of a risk. I hadn’t done that in a very long time, and it was always possible that I could have fucked it up. I also wrote in a teensy fandom (Queen’s Thief) where I was completely unknown, and that’s always a bit of a risk in terms of getting people to engage with you.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? Hahaha. FINISH THINGS. First up, I need to finish my chill fest fic Doubt Truth to be a Liar. After that, there are my other four JB WIPs to see to. Once I get all of those sorted out, I will probably return to some profic projects that I started a few years ago.

Best story of the year? I’m not sure. It’s either Twelve Days or That Greek Thing, though. They’re so different that I honestly can’t say for sure which is better. I love the very angsty chapter in Twelve Days and I think it’s the best single bit of writing I’ve done in a while. Otoh, I love all the comedy in That Greek Thing, and the way some scenes go comedy-porn-comedy. Which is better? I don’t know, but I love them both.

Most popular story of the year? The Personal Touch, my JB physiotherapist modern AU. For some reason eight chapters of massages and sexual tension and wanking, followed by a sex scene that sprawled across two chapters, a semi-break-up and finally a happy ending appealed to a lot of readers. Ah, fandom. 😉

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Oh, easily, EASILY Twelve Days. Teensy fandom, unknown writer - there was never going to be a lot of notice shown. I’m pretty sure it’s the only story I’ve posted in 21 years of writing fanfic that had entire chapters that didn’t get a single comment.

Most fun story to write: That Greek Thing. I made myself laugh gleefully through most of it, and then the angst and hurt/comfort hit and I had even more fun!

Most unintentionally telling story: Heh. The Personal Touch for the physiotherapy stuff minus the sexual tension. I’ve been on a lot of treatment tables over the years...

Biggest disappointment: The usual one: that I have a finite amount of energy, so I can either do a reasonable amount of writing or do a reasonable amount of reading - but I can’t do both. So, once again, a lot of the stories that I really wanted to read went by the wayside.

Biggest surprise: That I wrote not one but two slash stories this year - and both of them featured intercrural sex. Not for the hell of it, either. Both stories needed it, but for very different reasons.

[elcorhamletlive]

okay so apparently it’s wank o’clock and i decided to make a post

basically: there’s a difference between thinking steve’s ending didn’t work because, narratively, you had different hopes/expectations for the closing of steve’s arc, and you wish things had been handled in a different way; and the completely mind-boggling assumption that steve’s ending made steve selfish, bad, or ruined his character.

most of the people in the second group seem to view bucky as the big reason for that - the argument, as i’ve seen countless times by now, is that it’s selfish for steve to leave bucky alone in the future, since they have such a close relationship and bucky is going to have to cope with huge amounts of trauma from now on.

what i wish people would do, more than anything, is to sit down for a single moment and to ask themselves: “beyond my hurt feelings as a stu//cky shipper, does that indignation makes any sense? if i read steve and bucky’s relationship as the platonic strong friendship it was portrayed in canon, does my anger at steve on bucky’s supposed behalf still seems reasonable?”

because here’s the thing: shipping goggles make you see canon through a lenses that doesn’t entirely makes sense if you think about from an objective point of view. this is especially true if your ship isn’t canon.

as an example: imagine if i, a st0ny shipper, was mad at the writers or the character because pepper was the one who delivered the final goodbye during tony’s death. as a shipper i wish it could have been steve instead. but does that seem like a reasonable thing to be mad about? of course not - pepper is tony’s wife, the mother of his child. of course she was the one who told tony to rest. for the large, non-shipping audience, steve delivering that line could seem completely random, even if it would make MY shipping hear swell. narratively, pepper being the one to say that was the only logical option.

and i think the same logic goes for stu//cky shippers who are mad steve “left bucky alone in the future”. 

because the thing is... he DIDN’T. from bucky’s point of view, steve is only gone for five seconds, at most. in the future, if bucky needs steve to talk about his traumas or to testify in his favor to the government or whatever, steve is literally THERE, completely able to provide that help.

of course, that doesn’t mean nothing’s changed. after all, steve did live a life bucky wasn’t a part of. but here’s what i ask: how is that selfish? is steve’s life not his for him to decide what to do with it? does the emotional support bucky apparently requires from steve (which really is a fanon thing that never showed up in the movies, but that’s a rant for a different day) need to be provided by a young steve for it to be valid? did steve and bucky made a contract signed in blood that they’d spend steve’s next birthday together?

or, maybe, are you just mad because steve got married to someone else and he and bucky can’t kiss anymore?

like. i don’t want to be obtuse here. if you look at steve’s choice through a lenses of “bucky is in love with steve”, than, yeah, i could see how that choice could hurt bucky. but not only steve wouldn’t be obligated to reciprocate his feelings even if it were true (and fandom has way too many discussions about consent and “nice guy behaviour” for me to think it doesn’t know that), canonically, bucky isn’t in love with steve. 

like. there’s a difference between embracing that as a thing you want to see in the movies, and even thinking it’s a good element to have in a storyline that SHOULD become canon, and actually reading the text as if something that isn’t canon is. that leads to a messed up view of canon, because what you’re doing in this case is DEMANDING that the character in the canon material act accordingly to very subjective conclusions you drew about them in your own head (regardless if those conclusions make sense within canon or not). 

it’s fine to not be happy about steve’s ending. in many ways, i’m not, either, even if i’ve tried my best to make peace with it. but there’s a difference between having problems with the ending and framing steve’s - entirely reasonable, entirely in character - choices as something bad. it sends out the message that steve wanting to live his own life without harming literally anyone is bad, that steve having his own wishes and dreams is bad, that steve should instead spend his entire existence living in function of another person’s (supposed) emotional needs. and for a character that spent so long sacrificing himself for others, that’s a pretty shitty message to send.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The thing I love about Otto, he is the guy who...Peter Parker is supposed to be the everyman, and in a lot of ways he is, but he is always dating the most beautiful women in the world...supermodels, Gwen Stacy...And Otto was the guy, I am not a big fan of the late-90s as an era of Spider-Man. There was a character called Stunner who came along and was this big Amazonian woman with super-strength, who was Otto's partner and love-interest and the big reveal was that she was a virtual reality simulation and the real person was an overweight woman in a virtual reality machine. But when Otto finds out he says, I didn't love you for what you looked like, I loved you for your mind...I can’t remember if she [Aunt May]  saw Betty [Brant] as a bit of a Jezebel because she was older

We er...we really need to unpack this. I already did a post where I cited the above as part of why Christos Gage should never have been allowed to write Spider-Man.

But lets dive deeper into the idiocy of this. 

First of all if nothing else the above quote and panels really do prove beyond doubt that Marvel knew what they were doing when they paired Slott and Gage...well sorta. Gage and Slott’s approaches to Spider-Man fundamentally come from the same place of fundamental misunderstanding and regressive beliefs thus they were perfect to work together. It’s just that Gage is a comparatively more competent writer than Slott and therefore Slott should’ve been HIS understudy and fill-in guy not the other way around.

So let’s dive into the less awful bits first. Like Slott Gage doesn’t know his continuity and is too lazy to even google it.

Let’s put aside how Stan Lee himself  stated Betty Brant is younger  than Peter NOT older, the age difference would’ve been insignificant enough (Peter was a senior in high school when he was dating Betty, that’s stated in the issues) so what is this ‘Jezebel’ crap? The fact his mind would go to that rather than just Aunt May thinking MJ would be a better match is at best eyebrow raising.

Moving on, the crux of his assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship is way off the mark. Ignoring the fact that Stunner and the reveals made about her occurred in 1994-1995 (so literally not the LATE 1990s at all), he’s totally distorted the story as it unfolded. As such let me show you some of the relevant pages.

Gage’s assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship hinges upon two interconnected ideas.

a) Otto was unaware that her stunning appearance was a facade and

b) That he didn’t care upon finding out

As you can see that is a distortion of what the actual stories conveyed.

Otto was always  aware Stunner’s appearance was a facade because he invented the technology that made it possible in the first place!

Otto also began dating her BEFORE she became Stunner. This does indeed support the idea that for him outer beauty is not that relevant. 

For myself I find this idea debatable for a few reasons. Not only in the above images does he directly refer to Stunner as beautiful and the love of such a beautiful woman makes him happy but in the classic Spec #75 Bill Mantlo implies Otto took a fancy to Felicia due to her being attractive.

I grant you it’s far from impossible to interpret that Otto in fact was referring to Stunner’s personality as beautiful and took a shining to Felicia for reasons beyond her looks. In fact I find that interpretation interesting. But both examples hurt the narrative of Otto being a man who doesn’t care about outer beauty, even before you get to the fact that in Superior he was oggling and actively trying to fucking rape Mary Jane! What exactly about her  ‘inner beauty’ led to him doing this?

Then of course you have his relationship with Aunt May which has been treated as genuinely romantic when it’s very unlikely to be that.

The truth is Doc Ock has been inconsistently written over the decades so pinning down that he’s a man who doesn’t care about a woman’s outer beauty in regards to his feelings for them is extremely iffy.

His dynamic with Stunner and Gage’s assessment is even iffier as the pages detailing his ‘courting’ of her prior to her becoming empowered can definitely be interpreted as him actively manipulating her for his own ends. He needed a test subject for his technology, a technology he was hoping could essentially ensure he’d live beyond the demise of his mortal body and mind (which obviously happened in Superior). Angela was that test subject, he either came across or scouted her out with the explicit intention of having her use his machine. 

Because we only get brief flashes of their relationship it’s unclear if he was 100% decieving and manipulating her (as he was to Anna Maria and Mary Jane) or if he was sincere in his affections, at least on some level. Maybe he even started out manipulating her but grew to genuinely care for her before or after her transformation into Stunner.

My point is it’s not this grand moral victory for Otto that he cared for Angela even though she was overweight.

Which brings me to the most damning thing about Gage’s comments.

According to him Otto is better than Peter because Otto didn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars.

Much like all his work with Otto before and during his Superior run, Gage practically wanks off the character.

You see Otto is ‘different. He’s not like ‘those other guys’, or more specifically ‘that Peter Parker guy’. HE doesn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars. 

He just keeps the sexy cat burglars as his ‘guests’ that he won’t let leave his lair, will date by deception and attempt to rape the supermodels and will probably manipulate vulnerable overweight women for his own selfish scientific pursuits and date them sincerely once they’ve transformed into wrestling divas.

Of course in reality, romantic and sexual attraction is something none of us can help and we are going to feel about whoever however we’re going to feel, and the harsh truth is a lot (but not all) of the time outer appearences do matter, or at least they do when it comes to initial attractions. Often in healthy relationships they matter less as time goes by, but are rarely totally irrelevant. Nobody, of any sex, gender or sexuality, is shallow for on some level taking looks into account for how they feel about a romantic or sexual partner, at least on some level.

In Peter’s case Gage’s assessment (which synchs up with Slott’s) of him as shallow is so asinine because he clearly doesn’t just care about looks. In fact semi-famously in the classic Romita stories his initial attraction for Mary Jane fades after he (incorrectly, and unfairly) starts to view her as shallow and little more than her looks.

No doubt about it that chicks���s as pretty as a pumpkin seed...and just about as shallow.

ASM #45*

Peter late of course dumps  Black Cat in part because she doesn’t love him for who he is, and only cares about him as Spider-Man. He wants someone who will share a life with him, whom he can connect with. If he was only interested in her because she was sexy why would he do that?

And of course this is to say nothing of the absolute denigration Gage’s comments pay to both MJ and her relationship with Peter.

I’ve felt this way for awhile now but to be blunt, if a writer ever just sums up MJ as a ‘supermodel’ I’m going to presume they either don’t understand her character and/or hold some messed up opinions. Putting aside how MJ hasn’t a model (super or otherwise) for most of her history it’s just messed up that everything else about her is dismissed in favour of pushing that profession and treating it as a summation of who she is as a character.** 

Because whenever creators or characters sum up MJ as a supermodel what they really mean is ‘she’s just a shallow, pretty face’.  Which is so facepalm worthy ironic because the crux of Mary Jane’s entire character since The Death of Gwen Stacy in 1973  has been that people THINK she is just a shallow pretty face but she in fact absolutely isn’t!

And aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the stuff that is relevant to why she isn’t is literally the reason Spider-Man fell in love with her in the first place. All the guilt, regret, insecurities, bravery, sense of responsibility and inner strength that subverted what we thought we knew about her, that’s the shit that her and Spider-Man’s romance is built upon. 

How the fuck does anyone miss that! It’s not even like you need to read deeply to see it, just read a Wikipedia entry!

It isn’t the crux of Felicia’s character, but the same applies to her. What jackass in this day and age (or indeed since the 1980s) honestly thinks Black Cat is nothing but sex appeal? There is an entire goddam Black Cat ongoing series demonstrating she is more than that! Gage is a goddam relic at this point!

On the flipside of course is poor Anna Maria.

Once upon a time Anna Maria was the best character in Spider-Man. Back in the dark days of 2013 and 2014 when Superior was going strong, MJ was out of the picture and the best Spider-Man books on the stand were about a kid replacing a dead AU Peter Parker and Peter Parker’s clone, Anna Maria was a stand out.

A new character with a personality, likable, a new love interest for ‘Spider-Man’ that on paper made a certain amount of sense even though the circumstances were disgusting. And on top of that she provided a dash of representation that was handled in an appropriate way.

As time went by she gradually devolved as a character and went way off the rails to the point where now she’s being a misogynistic asshole to other women by judging them for their looks. It’s so fucked up because she herself has been judged for her looks, just in a very different way whilst the likes of those ‘shallow’ women she cites have never said a bad word to her or to my knowledge anyone else on the basis of how they were born. 

Good job Gage, this is probably the last time we’re going to see Anna Maria and you’ve fully transitioned me from a guy who kind of wanted her to stick around in some capacity as a regular supporting player for Peter into a guy who would be delighted for her to forgotten and never appear again. 

Fuck Gage.

Fuck Superior

Fuck the entire asinine, mishandled, clusterfuck of an era that outstayed it’s welcome circa December 2012!

*In fairness he does bring up he might just be thinking ill of MJ because he’s upset about other things. See, THAT is a more even handed and on point depiction of Peter Parker being flawed. But Stan Lee being a better writer than Gage or Slott shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

**Not to mention ‘supermodel’ shouldn’t even be used as shorthand for ‘shallow person’ in the first place. Are supermodels not people too? Are they incapable of being intelligent or having worth outside of their looks? I mean FFS we live in a world where this (starting at 3:37) really happened:

[smokeybrandreviews]

The Sacred Texts

Look, I really, really, love Star Wars. I know it seems like i don’t considering all of the hate pieces I’ve written about the current state of the mythos, but I actually really enjoy a great deal about the canon. I’ve been a fan since I was a wee lil’ Smokey, watching A New Hope on the tele all those years ago. I was watching a few clips of Rebels, which ain’t that good, and found myself almost in tears over the Vader/Ahsoka battle and it got me thinking: What are my favorite things in Star Wars? So i wanted to kind of captured those aspects here, for posterity. I wanted to have a place where I could just, you know, remind myself of what exactly made me fall in love with this franchise.

Darth Vader - Vader is what sparked my love for this entire franchise. That stark contrast between his jet black armor and the stark white of the rebel ship stayed with me for years. And that booming, authoritative voice of James Earl Jones? My goodness! Over the years, certain writers have nerfed him, others have embellished him, but Vader has endured. Even now, as Disney tries to completely erase his legacy, Vader is still one of the mst popular characters in the entire franchise. Even if the Mouse House usurps his pwn goddamn tale and gives it to their Mary Sue, Vader still endures. He is my absolute favorite aspect of this entire franchise and a ton of my other favorites are Vader adjacent.

Ahsoka Tano - Ahsoka is my second favorite character in the entire goddamn franchise and i never expected that to happen because I was one of those cats screaming about Anakin getting a Padawan. Color me surprised when she was just like her master but better. Ahsoka is basically the POV character to the absolutely brilliant Clone Wars, another one of my favorite things about the Star War, and she earns that distinction with the most growth, characterization, and pathos. I loved witnessing her journey over those six, now seven, seasons. She’s an amazing character and Disney is bullsh*t for neglecting her in favor of their own OC sh*tstorms.

Chelli Aphra - Doctor Aphra is one of the few Disney Star Wars characters that I actually really enjoy. She was introduced in that first Darth Vader comic run and immediately proved her worth. Obviously, the Vader comics are also on this list but it was Doc Aphra that really sold me on that first run. Her own solo adventure was pretty legit, too. It’s weird that we haven’t seen her in anything outside of the funnies though. I mean, she’s mad compelling, brilliant, resourceful, and funny as sh*t. That said, I heard rumors that Disney might be looking to cash in on certain characters after that L they took with Rise, Aphra being one of those cashgrabs so we’ll see...

Knights of the Old Republic - So, full disclaimer, I’m not super on board with Shadows of the Empire. I didn’t care for the independent tales outside of the Skywalker saga when i was a youth. That said, KOTOR killed for me. That was the first time i realized there were entire stories in this world that had nothing to do with Luke, Annie, Leia, or Han and they could be straight up excellent. That first KOTOR was damn near perfect and the second, while not as good as the first, was still one of the better RPG narratives I’ve experience. Hell, even the spin-off MMO, The Old Republic, is pretty dope and all of it started with that very first tale about Revan and his conflicted ass second life. Malak is whack, tho.

Mara Jade - Before Ahsoka, i was wildly infatuated with Mara Jade. I kind of still am and hate the fact that she was one of Disney’s biggest casualties because, holy sh*t! Ma Jade was stupid boss! The development of her character throughout her various Legends appearances was outstanding. Some of the best character writing in the lore. I was irate when they just erased her from the history. Like, how could you? Mara Jade was one of the most marketable aspect about the entire goddamn franchise and you just dump her? In favor of what? Erasing everything about the Skywalkers? Are you f*cking serious??

The Mandalorian - I actually wrote and entire thing about Mando. Suffice it to say, this is the best thing Disney has created under the Star Wars banner by the widest of margins.

Kylo Ren - Look, Vader wank, man. I really liked Kylo Ren. I thought his passion and petulance was a legit contrast to Vader’s cold pragmatism. I thought his design was dope and the potential he shows in Awakens had me looking forward to what came next. Now, what came next was the assassination of the entire Skywalker saga, but Kylo was dope in it. I cannot say the same about Rise. Still, two out of three ain’t bad. It’s the best numbers anyone in the series has gotten. Seriously, Kylo is the bet thing about the Disney trilogy, outside of the score.

Asajj Ventress - Bro, Ventrus probably has the most complete arc after Ahsoka in the entirety of Clone wars. Even her growth, post show in Legends material, is some of the best in the expanded universe. I adore this character, man! Watching her develop from devout Sith follower, to a disillusioned shell of herself mirroring Ahsoka’s own story, to a redeemed Jedi with substantial power, to her final heroic sacrifice was an absolutely wonderful journey. Her arc reminds me a lot of what the MCU did with Black Widow only, in reverse; We got to see all the sordid sh*t was into and had to read about what came after instead of the other way around. Even so, Asajj became a legit powerhouse in the franchise and i have to than Clone Wars for that.

Maul - I didn’t like Darth Maul at first. His appearance in Menace left me wanting. Cats were hung up on his double lightsaber and fancy fighting style or whatever but, to me, he was one dimensional and expendable. Apparently to Lucas, too, because the motherf*cker got cut in half. That said, fans loved him an, somehow, he found life after bisection becoming one of the dopest characters in the entire lore. Clone Wars, literally the best thing in the entire Star Wars lore, gave this cat a character and developed him into a real force. Rebels turned him into a goddamn legend. I sit here, today, confessing how wrong I was about Darth Maul and we have Dave Filoni’s excellence in storytelling for that. F*ck was Clone Wars good, man! Also, he has some dope ass concept art.

Clone Wars - F*ck it, it’s going on the goddamn list! Clone Wars is everything a long form Star Wars story should be. It’s rich with world building, fantastic characters, dope as story lines, excellent set pieces, massive stakes, legitimate pathos, palpable emotion; Bro, this thing made me fall in love with the franchise all over again and I was already in a committed, long term relationship with my Galaxy far, far, away.

Look, i still love Star Wars,  just don’t care for what Disney is doing with my franchise. There is a lot of great stuff in the preceding forty years and it’s a shame to just ignore all of that because it’s not “canon” anymore. Admittedly, there are a few things that Disney knocked out of the park but most of what they’ve done is the worst. Still, Star Wars will endure. There’s too much love for the franchise to be killed off but corporate nonsense, especially considering the sheer girth of accessible material.

[smokeybrand]

The Sacred Texts

Look, I really, really, love Star Wars. I know it seems like I don’t considering all of the hate pieces I’ve written about the current state of the mythos, but I actually really enjoy a great deal about the canon. I’ve been a fan since I was a wee lil’ Smokey, watching A New Hope on the tele all those years ago. I was watching a few clips of Rebels, which ain’t that good, and found myself almost in tears over the Vader/Ahsoka battle and it got me thinking: What are my favorite things in Star Wars? So i wanted to kind of captured those aspects here, for posterity. I wanted to have a place where I could just, you know, remind myself of what exactly made me fall in love with this franchise.

Darth Vader - Vader is what sparked my love for this entire franchise. That stark contrast between his jet black armor and the stark white of the rebel ship stayed with me for years. And that booming, authoritative voice of James Earl Jones? My goodness! Over the years, certain writers have nerfed him, others have embellished him, but Vader has endured. Even now, as Disney tries to completely erase his legacy, Vader is still one of the mst popular characters in the entire franchise. Even if the Mouse House usurps his pwn goddamn tale and gives it to their Mary Sue, Vader still endures. He is my absolute favorite aspect of this entire franchise and a ton of my other favorites are Vader adjacent.

Ahsoka Tano - Ahsoka is my second favorite character in the entire goddamn franchise and I never expected that to happen because I was one of those cats screaming about Anakin getting a Padawan. Color me surprised when she was just like her master but better. Ahsoka is basically the POV character to the absolutely brilliant Clone Wars, another one of my favorite things about the Star War, and she earns that distinction with the most growth, characterization, and pathos. I loved witnessing her journey over those six, now seven, seasons. She’s an amazing character and Disney is bullsh*t for neglecting her in favor of their own OC sh*tstorms.

Chelli Aphra - Doctor Aphra is one of the few Disney Star Wars characters that I actually really enjoy. She was introduced in that first Darth Vader comic run and immediately proved her worth. Obviously, the Vader comics are also on this list but it was Doc Aphra that really sold me on that first run. Her own solo adventure was pretty legit, too. It’s weird that we haven’t seen her in anything outside of the funnies though. I mean, she’s mad compelling, brilliant, resourceful, and funny as sh*t. That said, I heard rumors that Disney might be looking to cash in on certain characters after that L they took with Rise, Aphra being one of those cashgrabs so we’ll see...

Knights of the Old Republic - So, full disclaimer, I’m not super on board with Shadows of the Empire. I didn’t care for the independent tales outside of the Skywalker saga when i was a youth. That said, KOTOR killed for me. That was the first time i realized there were entire stories in this world that had nothing to do with Luke, Annie, Leia, or Han and they could be straight up excellent. That first KOTOR was damn near perfect and the second, while not as good as the first, was still one of the better RPG narratives I’ve experience. Hell, even the spin-off MMO, The Old Republic, is pretty dope and all of it started with that very first tale about Revan and his conflicted ass second life. Malak is whack, tho.

Mara Jade - Before Ahsoka, I was wildly infatuated with Mara Jade. I kind of still am and hate the fact that she was one of Disney’s biggest casualties because, holy sh*t! Ma Jade was stupid boss! The development of her character throughout her various Legends appearances was outstanding. Some of the best character writing in the lore. I was irate when they just erased her from the history. Like, how could you? Mara Jade was one of the most marketable aspect about the entire goddamn franchise and you just dump her? In favor of what? Erasing everything about the Skywalkers? Are you f*cking serious??

The Mandalorian - I actually wrote and entire thing about Mando. Suffice it to say, this is the best thing Disney has created under the Star Wars banner by the widest of margins.

Kylo Ren - Look, Vader wank, man. I really liked Kylo Ren. I thought his passion and petulance was a legit contrast to Vader’s cold pragmatism. I thought his design was dope and the potential he shows in Awakens had me looking forward to what came next. Now, what came next was the assassination of the entire Skywalker saga, but Kylo was dope in it. I cannot say the same about Rise. Still, two out of three ain’t bad. It’s the best numbers anyone in the series has gotten. Seriously, Kylo is the bet thing about the Disney trilogy, outside of the score.

Asajj Ventress - Bro, Ventrus probably has the most complete arc after Ahsoka in the entirety of Clone wars. Even her growth, post show in Legends material, is some of the best in the expanded universe. I adore this character, man! Watching her develop from devout Sith follower, to a disillusioned shell of herself mirroring Ahsoka’s own story, to a redeemed Jedi with substantial power, to her final heroic sacrifice was an absolutely wonderful journey. Her arc reminds me a lot of what the MCU did with Black Widow only, in reverse; We got to see all the sordid sh*t was into and had to read about what came after instead of the other way around. Even so, Asajj became a legit powerhouse in the franchise and i have to than Clone Wars for that.

Maul - I didn’t like Darth Maul at first. His appearance in Menace left me wanting. Cats were hung up on his double lightsaber and fancy fighting style or whatever but, to me, he was one dimensional and expendable. Apparently to Lucas, too, because the motherf*cker got cut in half. That said, fans loved him an, somehow, he found life after bisection becoming one of the dopest characters in the entire lore. Clone Wars, literally the best thing in the entire Star Wars lore, gave this cat a character and developed him into a real force. Rebels turned him into a goddamn legend. I sit here, today, confessing how wrong I was about Darth Maul and we have Dave Filoni’s excellence in storytelling for that. F*ck was Clone Wars good, man! Also, he has some dope ass concept art.

Clone Wars - F*ck it, it’s going on the goddamn list! Clone Wars is everything a long form Star Wars story should be. It’s rich with world building, fantastic characters, dope as story lines, excellent set pieces, massive stakes, legitimate pathos, palpable emotion; Bro, this thing made me fall in love with the franchise all over again and I was already in a committed, long term relationship with my Galaxy far, far, away.

Look, I still love Star Wars,  just don’t care for what Disney is doing with my franchise. There is a lot of great stuff in the preceding forty years and it’s a shame to just ignore all of that because it’s not “canon” anymore. Admittedly, there are a few things that Disney knocked out of the park but most of what they’ve done is the worst. Still, Star Wars will endure. There’s too much love for the franchise to be killed off but corporate nonsense, especially considering the sheer girth of accessible material.

[mittensmorgul]

Hey Mittens! Can I just say that I really appreciate your staying analytical and not getting derailed by people overreacting to PR, it’s really helping me to stay rational as well and not panic over interpretations of who said what at Comic-Con... thank you for being you!

hah! Thanks! I do my best. I’ve lived through enough of these things at this point that I refuse to get too worked up about anything said at SDCC, and my baseline is “wait and see.”

Most sdcc PR either turns out to be misleading at best or outright deceptive. I don’t expect anyone to sit through what amounts to hours of roundtable interview footage (sure they spend five minutes at each table, but there are NINE of them-- Dabb, Bobo, Singer, Buckner, Eugenie, Alex, Misha, Jensen, and Jared), and at least half a dozen tables they all rotate through. The only ones I really care about for story purposes are the writers (the others are fun, but they haven’t even started FILMING for the season yet with the exception of Jensen who has only been directing), but the writers are actively crafting the season’s narrative and have the most interesting and relevant answers in that regard.

And I mean... take half an hour and watch a few Dabb and Bobo interviews and suddenly you have actual context for Dabb’s dumb tweet which effectively renders it a JOKE. But fandom loves to take things out of context and assume the worst. I just lost patience for preemptive wank years ago. But also in the opposite direction-- assuming too much hope for a specific desired course to develop based on stuff said during interviews... I tend to not put much stock in those, either. They are deliberately trying to tease the upcoming season and pique our interest in it through vague hints. What *WE* read into them is our own fault, you know?

Far too many times, I’ve seen the fandom express “betrayal” by the writers because of comments taken out of context at panels like these. (recall, if you will, last year’s incident... and then do your best to continue pretending like it never happened).

The best approach to any PR is careful consideration, or else adopting the attitude of patting the writers on the head and muttering that’s nice, dear, now show us the goods. Folks who hear one out of context quote, or see a gif set of part of one interview are ignoring all the rest of the slightly different variations everyone involved expressed at all their other five minute interview panels. And like everything else, I’ve found that context really does matter. And like all storytelling, as the story unfolds, details can change. Especially in a collaborative work like a tv show. They can talk about what they have planned all they want, but there are so many variables that might change things or alter their plans between now and the end of the season that even what seems like a concrete done deal now might unfold differently over time. Best be prepared for that eventuality now so we can be happily surprised if it turns out as we hoped or expected, rather than eternally bitter and feeling like we were misled or manipulated, you know? That’s just no way to live. :P

[que-pasa-calabasa]

que-pasa-calabasa’s Good Omens fic rec masterpost

In no particular order, except for the fact that I’m putting all the PWP (or close approximations thereof) together at the bottom. Some will be not be show-canon compliant as they predate the release. Summaries are copy-pasted from the ao3 summary; italics are my own commentary added. 

is it that we are dying? (5k, G): England, 1349, the middle of the 14th century. The black death rages, and Aziraphale has to help a dying demon escape from a church. Sad and sweet, completely indulgent hurt/comfort

Don’t Play With Holy Water (30k, M): When the Bentley goes missing, Crowley isn't sure what to make of it. Unbeknownst to him, a certain lurking demon is waiting to settle an old score... A wild ride full of peril and body-swapping, Aziraphale is a BAMF

Mirror, Mirror (44k, T): Adam, Eve, and Crawly flee Eden through the Western Gate, and it turns out that that simple decision makes all the difference in the world... Parallel-universe Crowley is hilariously evil, regular-degular Crowley takes a turn as the bad-ass

with my mind on my money (and my money on my mind) (3k, T): Mr. Fell was as eccentric as Tim might expect a rare book dealer with a connoisseur's knowledge of cannabis strains to be, and he couldn't help being fond of him. Aziraphale and Crowley do weed, what more is there to say?

In which Adam challenges Crowley to a drinking contest and it is a terrible idea (1k, T): It is a rather foolish thing to set a bet with the devil, or even with a devil, unless you have an ace—or better yet, all the aces in the deck—up your sleeve.But if you are the Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is Called Dragon, Spawn of Satan, etc., etc., well…you were born with all the aces up your sleeve, and the only admonishment you need is “Have fun, kiddo, and don’t screw him over too hard.”  Pure humor, entertaining drunk!Crowley

Game Over, Insert Coin (14k, M): An Account of Certain Events occurring in the Groundhog Day AU no one asked for, in strict accordance as shall be shewn with Narrative Interference of an (Un)predictable Nature for the Sleepless Reader. Exactly what it says on the tin, all your normal Groundhog Day AU angst

A Matter of Convenience (12k, T): “You know,” Crowley rasped as he struggled to scrape himself off the ground, “I can't shake the feeling that there must be an easier way to go about this.”A possible take on the birth of the Arrangement. There’s some sadness, some historical fun, and some Hurt Boys (tm)

Rarefied Air (3k, E): Earth is getting older, news is getting worse, and an angel has to go to extreme heights to get any peace and quiet at all. But as close as you can get to Heaven, you're still never far from Hell. (Hell hasn't frozen. Crowley nearly has.) There’s explicit sex in this but it’s so much more than PWP

Dark and Stormy Night (or Never Underestimate an Angel) (5k, T): “Hmph. I suppose you think that, just because I’m an angel, that I’m too tame to read a scary story properly?” Silly and cute, Crowley and Aziraphale are weird godfathers to the Them

The Curse of Horemheb (66k, M): “The locals call her Bibân el Molûk, but she’s better known as the Valley of the Kings.”Or: Aziraphale and Crowley run into each other in Luxor in 1908 and find themselves confronted with the consequences of actions three thousand years old. Sprawling multi-era adventure with some good fun tropes

off the record (8k, T): Crowley has to submit a biannual report, but there are some things that he often neglects to include. Cute, sweet almost-meta on the natures of Crowley and Aziraphale

A Sticker Situation (1k, G): Everyone's favorite angel and demon are innocently driving past a gas station when Crowley notices a giveaway that he absolutely must participate in. Crowley is a huge James Bond nerd

Under the Apple Tree (6k, T): Crowley finds himself in a tight spot, and Aziraphale dares to hope his help could turn into something more. Devastating, if you like tragic hurt/comfort this is the one for you

Essentially Social Chameleons (2k, G): In short, Aziraphale and Crowley are not as good at blending in with mortals as they think they are. There are better places to discover this than Newton and Anathema's baby's christening, but, well, we're here now. Very silly, one my my favorite genres (humans are confused by Crowley and Aziraphale)

the bucket list (13k, E): There was a certain look that Aziraphale wore occasionally—a pinched sort of moue that looked like he’d just taken a very large mouthful of cinnamon—which meant he thought Crowley was being ridiculous. He had put it on.“Hang on,” he had said. “You want us to do human things?” *If you're going to go native, you might as well go all the way. Crowley and Aziraphale decide to try some fun human things, there’s some obvious smut but it’s not what it’s really about

Milton Was Right (1k, T): Adam knows where most babies come from, but is pretty sure that doesn't apply to him. Aziraphale and Crowley show their usual levels of competence in explaining where antichrists come from. Just...extremely funny

it's the light (it's the obstacle that casts it) (5k, T): It's like having a curtain pulled back on something he wasn't expecting to see. A surprise punch-and-judy at an up-scale restaurant, a lobster thermidor when he's ordered an ale.Crowley's gleefully trying to wrap his head around the fact that Aziraphale is speaking Polari. Because of course he is. Or: The Patron Saint of London's LGBT Community is real, and he lives in Soho. One of my favorites

HERE BE SMUT

The One in Which Crowley Discovers Wanking (5k, E): It began, like most memorable events in Crowley’s life did, with a bad decision; like most bad decisions, it involved poor impulse control and copious amounts of alcohol. The Antichrist had been born, and he put on lipstick and kitten heels to deal with it, but knew that the clock was ticking, and at times when time was slipping away, it helped to hold onto a bottle of gin. Also what it says on the tin, Crowley jacks off while Aziraphale sort of helps

Come Fuck Me Hips (5k, E): Crowley has had a fantasy about Aziraphale for centuries now. Too bad the angel would never take him up on it. Except, as it turns out, he absolutely would. Crowley’s a bottom and Aziraphale is a service top, this is pretty much the only dynamic I accept

I Was Born to Love You (28k, E): Crowley shows up to take Aziraphale to lunch, and for the first time in quite a good while, he flashes just a bit of ankle. And that's how it all begins. Fun banter, hot sex

The Mysteries of Ladies’ Knickers (2k, E): Somewhere in the fall of 1963, Aziraphale was issued a new body. Later, he was never entirely sure if the mix-up following the assignment of its replacement was intentional or purely accidental. He had his suspicions. Crowley was not sure how to feel about it. It’s hot, Aziraphale is a woman temporarily, there’s sex, you know the drill

Love Hath Made Thee a Tame Snake (3k, E): He was the bloody Serpent of Eden, and he wasn’t going to stand for this kind of flagrant trespassing. Kind of borderline fluff/smut, the first half is mostly cute snake!Crowley

Killer Queen (2k, E): In hindsight, Crowley reflected, it was probably not one of his best or brightest ideas to introduce a six-thousand-year-old virgin to the subtle and intricate matters of sexual intercourse. Things could, frankly speaking, get a little out of hand. (Or, Aziraphale has a sexual awakening.) Oh God, hilarious and sexy, Aziraphale treats sex like food and wants to try aLL THE THINGS

Tryst on a Hot Church Roof (2k, E): Crowley has some fantasies. Aziraphale encourages him to explore them and not to be embarrassed. Neither of them can really take roleplay seriously but they still have a good time. Those nerds trying to sexily roleplay and failing is one of my fav tropes

[dotthings]

Now that there’s a good bit of S15 already aired to ponder, I’m going to revisit some more Dabb quotes about S15. This is from Variety, October 7, 2019.

Concerning Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack as a unit: “ultimately this is a found family, and they have deep emotional bonds”

This point is pretty straightforward. The current showrunner regards the four of them as a family, and that’s been reflected in the story. While SPN has never been only Sam and Dean, in this era of SPN, the family they assembled has become more important than ever.

On the overall emotional approach of modern SPN:

“This is not just true of this season, this has been true for awhile, but we can devote a lot more time to the emotions of the guys. In the beginning of the show they were always on the road, but since they’ve been able to be settled, we’ve been able to see their lives beyond just the next monster.”

This quote is so interesting to me, and matches a lot of what I’ve been saying for a while on various platforms about how the characters and story evolved. The importance of the bunker, the importance of their expanded family becoming more and more a constant. I’m not watching SPN for the plot ultimately, I’m watching for the characters and their emotional life, with monsters, demons, angels, and mytharc to keep things lively. This is a big reason why I love genre. The monsters and mytharc are fun, but it’s the monsters and adventure and wild plots as a wonderful springboard to explore and reveal characters. Late run SPN is embodying this balance really well. I could also list off a number of shows I love that operate under this principle. So much of genre TV operates under this principle.

About how TV has changed and SPN has changed:

“I think you really get an evolution of TV as a medium. When this show started it was a very different show than where it will end, and the same thing about television generally. And I think what’s allowed the show to stay on as long as it has is that it’s been able to adapt.”

Gosh it’s like a show that’s been on for more of a decade will evolve or something! What a half-baked notion, who gave this guy the keys and put him in charge? LOL. I’m sorry I have to laugh at the rage in fandom over the mere fact that SPN didn’t stay frozen in amber carbon dated S2 and why anyone is surprised by that. It’s not just SPN itself changing, it is TV industry changing around it and SPN had to keep pace. SPN would not have survived to S15 without being adaptable. Now you can say it all sucks so you think it should have ended when Kripke left, but you can’t brag about SPN’s longevity and then dump all over the things that helped get it there, knee jerk rejecting necessary change on a hard core level. As if change itself is the reason you’ve got criticisms. It’s not. Execution of the story would be a reason to criticize, but not change in and of itself. We can all differ on the effectiveness of that execution, but there’s plenty of fans who are loving Dabb era just fine, just as there are fans who exist who despise it.

On “fan service”

“I hope we’re speaking to the majority of our fans. There’s definitely episodes where we do address things that come out of the fandom and out of social media, but in terms of how the story ends, in terms of bringing back certain characters, it was [about] what makes sense for the guys on their journey and in this story at this point. To some extent, all television now is fan service, but it’s not about direct fan service in that way; it’s more about what is going to get us to the emotional conclusion that we want for these guys.”

Notice the “I hope.” There’s no assumption here that absolutely everyone will love what they do, there never has been, from anyone at SPN in fact. They try to tell the best possible story they can that will appeal to the most fans. “All television is now fan service” is a very interesting statement, and Dabb doesn’t elaborate, but I want to try and unpack what he could mean.

In this era of social media and so many different possible delivery platforms, the scrutiny all shows fall under, the heavy interaction between creators and fans, and TV being by its nature, in its creation, a collaborative medium to begin with, it’s unrealistic to think any show could survive and operate in a bubble that completely ignores fan responses or disregards industry changes happening around it. That doesn’t mean spn or any show has to alter things at the mere whiff of every negative or positive fan response. Social media can also be a bit of a funhouse mirror of fan response, or provide a far too selective idea of fan response. For every SPN fan shouting that it’s wrong for SPN to listen to fan responses, there’s a fan response saying the same thing to shut down the opposing lane. Who do they listen to? What does it even mean to protect the sanctity of the story in this era of TV?

SPN fandom currently has multiple lanes claiming to be the arbiters of what “everyone” wants, and the reality of the fandom is very different, it actually looks like chaos. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Remember that for a long long time SPN fandom wank focused around brosonlies who kept saying caring only for Sam and Dean was the 99% and anyone who had any concerns for Sam or Dean’s autonomy in the story, who loved Cas, female characters, found family, and who cared about diversity on SPN was the 1%. It’s been obvious for a while now that TPTB are much more astute about the actual make-up of the fanbase than that false narrative. Over time the wanking got less locked into a few clear-cut lane divisions and now it’s a mess of internal lane conflicts and 3-5 lanes in opposition at any given moment, lanes within lanes, subsets within subsets. I don’t think that’s because SPN sucks. I think it’s because a) we’re approaching the end so people’s emotions are really really jacked up and heightened and b) a natural evolution of what would happen when a show like this goes on as long as this one has.

It’s funny how at the time this interview came out, fandom narrative ran with that quote as Dabb saying SPN is all fanservice when he’s saying the opposite to that. “It’s not about direct fan service” “it’s about what is going to get us tot he emotional conclusion that we want.” They aren’t bringing back familiar characters merely because fandom loves them, although he’s not denying that as a benefit to it, they’re back because they serve a story purpose. They don’t do anything just to service fandom. “Fan service” as a term is mis-used in SPN fandom so often it’s lost all meaning. “Fan service” in SPN fandom means anything the angry fan doesn’t like, no matter how much build-up it’s been given, no matter how logical it is for the character to return, no matter how tied into the major core themes of the show for umpteen years already certain reltionships are, they will be yelled down as “fan service” just because there’s a bunch of fans who love it, while fans who don’t are mad about it, therefore “fan service.”

PR is a lot of smoke and mirrors a lot of the time, but the reason this is relevant is so many Dabb’s quotes are reflected in the actual execution and tone and focus of canon.

SPN revolves around Sam and Dean and Cas and found family, and has for a very long time. Sam and Dean are the most central figures, but Cas is part of the central hub of that pov, and the show isn’t just about Sam and Dean, or just about Sam, Dean, Cas, it’s them...and their familiy. SPN has always been about family. That’s...the show.

[naruhearts]

OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here: 

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text. 

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer