#the fact that your het ship is likely to be canon in a story written by straight people doesn't make it better and you are also being jerks

[raina-at]

Fic writer meme

Thank you so much for tagging me @discordantwords.

How many works do you have on ao3? 34. 6 SPN RPF (J2), 1 Supernatural (Wincest - if you have opinions about this, I don't want to hear them), and 27 for BBC Sherlock. I feel compelled to add though that my fandom history predates AO3 by about ten years, and that most of the fics I wrote during that time aren't on AO3. All of my TPM fics, all of my HP fics and most of my Supernatural fics are in fact not on Ao3. So I actually have no idea how many fics I've written since I started in 2001.

What’s your total word count? 585,261 words.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Don't Read the Last Page, Bakers with Benefits, Running Obliquely, Guess Who's Coming to Christmas Dinner and All I Want for Christmas (is Proof) (you guys really like my Christmas fics :-))

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Yes, I love comments, and I love getting into dialogue with readers about their interpretation of the characters and canon! I try to answer everyone, if I ever forget to answer, I'm really sorry!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Um... None?

Of the ones on AO3 that is. I once wrote a Supernatural fic where Sam was a ghost and Dean had to exorcise him and it was heavily implied that Dean would commit suicide as soon as that was done, so that was pretty dark. And I wrote 2 Supernatural post Apocalypse fics that end well but the setting is very bleak.

But all my new stuff, especially all my Johnlock stuff, has happy endings.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Probably Bakers with Benefits. Sherlock gets everything he wants, including John, and they basically live happily ever after. But like I said, all my fics end happily.

Do you write crossovers?

I haven't yet, but that doesn't mean I won't, one of these days. I wrote a Bake Off Sherlock AU, but crossovers means having characters from both canons, and I re-cast both hosts and jurors, so it probably doesn't count.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, thankfully not. I've received a few odd comments here and there, but I never had the feeling that they were mailcious, just tone deaf.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, I do. Mostly of the vanilla kind, I'm not super kinky, and I'm not much for writing PWPs these days, but I like a good, spicy sex scene that shows you something about the characters and their dynamic. And sometimes it's just hawt. Which is also fine.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I heard a story once that someone stole one of my J2 fics and turned into a Het Degrassi fic, but I could never verify this claim because the fic got deleted. Other than that, not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, several, and it's a great honour.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, mostly with my wife @nuttersinc, we co-wrote an entire fic series and some other, smaller fics, and we once at a Boondock Saints RPG (I know. I know.) I haven't co-written with anyone in ages, and I'm not sure how good I would be at it these days, since I'm a pantser and don't have very much time, so I think I'd drive anyone with a regular writing schedule bananas. But I'm open to try.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

All time.... omg... Ok, so mirroring @discordantwords here, I adore Mulder and Scully still. They're the OG ship for me, they were the first pairing I read fanfic for. They'e such a good example of The Dynamic (repressed bisexual disguising as the "normal" one when they're just a more adapted sort of crazy and socially awkward genius crazy himbo the normal one has to save all the time). Scully especially owns my heart, I love her, and Gillian Anderson is, like. So. Hot.

But Sherlock and John... they're just... so GOOD. You can do anything with them. You can put them in any scenario, any time, any space, and they're just so magnetically drawn to each other, they complement each other so well and they're so bad and so good for each other... I love them. So much.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Oh, quite a few. The one where John is Sherlock's neighbour and they have this 'we're just friends' dynamic and everyone thinks they should just get married, including Rosie, who's a sassy teen in this fic. It's got a lot of potential but I don't think I'll ever finish it.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at dialogue and character dynamics. I think I'm also good at building character arcs, and I think I'm good at setting scenes and making oblivious idiots fall in love.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not the greates plot writer in the world. It takes me much more effort than writing a fic where, say, Sherlock and John have breakfast and talk, to pick a random example. I tend to lose the thread of the plot because I start writing the vibe before I have everything figured out, so I tend to get 'stranded' at some point. That's why my WIP folder looks the way it does.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don't attempt it if I don't have a native speaker to look it over and tell me if it's correct. (if the other language isn't German, which is my native language).

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Roswell (the one from the early 2000s, not Roswell New Mexico. Yes, I'm a Fandom Old.)

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

None, honestly. If I wanted to write for a fandom or ship, I would.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

Oh my god I'm not sure I can answer that. I really like all of my fics, and I love most of them still. Some were such fun to write, some harder but the hardship made them more beloved.

I'll probably have to go for Bakers with Benefits, though, because I still like to re-visit that 'verse and I just LOVE these two.

That was fun! I'm tagging anyone who wants to do this, but especially @jrow @meetinginsamarra @lisbeth-kk and @thetimemoves

[saintsenara]

Hey, I've been enjoying going through your takes on various hp ships, and I haven't seen this one. Did I miss it? What do you think of Ginny/Luna??

thank you very much for the ask, anons!

i've hinted at my views on linny in various places, but they don't yet have a dedicated post. so let's rectify that...

while i have a lot of time for the idea of both ginny and luna as queer, i'm sorry to say that linny is a victim of my general view when it comes to luna-centric pairings: that fics in which it's presented as something which works depend on the presence of fanon!luna, who is a beautiful clairvoyant ray-of-sunshine, rather than canon!luna, who is a stubborn conspiracist with the vibes of a golden retriever which can speak.

i don't doubt that ginny is incredibly fond of luna - nor that luna's positive characteristics [like her resilience, loyalty, kindness, and courage] must have been an enormous comfort to her while they're stuck at hogwarts with snape and the carrows - but her fondness always reads as the same sort of fondness you might have for a friend's precocious toddler. it's nice eye-rolling, but it's eye-rolling nonetheless.

which i think adds a slightly condescending element to their relationship which often gets left out of its portrayals in fanfiction, in both the platonic and the romantic sense. ginny and luna become closer just as ginny approaches her hot girl era [and, may i say, the implication of canon is that they're barely acquaintances prior to order of the phoenix, rather than childhood friends], and ginny's interest in keeping her around is evidently rooted in the fact that she views luna as unthreatening - her making luna take harry to ravenclaw tower in deathly hallows instead of cho always sends me, because she basically says "luna, you're unfuckable" and luna jumps up like "right you are!" - to her during her teenage peak. it's not exactly giving "christ, i think you're gorgeous"...

except, of course, that this doesn't matter in the slightest because this is fanfiction - the entire point is for two characters to be shoved together and made to realise they think the other is beautiful! i am perfectly amenable to the idea that linny can be written in which ginny and luna like and respect and are fucking obsessed with each other and which also feels coherent to both of their canon characterisations - and i love that for anyone who's a fan of the ship.

i just don't entirely think i am...

[there's also the... slightly discourse-y point, which is that linny often feels thrown into fics as a secondary ship as a way to enable a harry-centric slash pairing in a way which doesn't require the author to think about unravelling harry and ginny's canonical relationship.]

[i don't think there's anything wrong with this, per se - i break hinny up all the time, authors should be free to do whatever the fuck they want with their stories, not all fics need to do a completely canon-coherent wrangling with the canon couples they're breaking up in order to have their blorbos kiss, and i am increasingly uncomfortable with how some of the discussion i've seen recently pushing back, rightfully, on the misogynistic treatment of female characters in slash subfandoms is starting to sound a lot like "our canon het is pure and good and their non-canon slash is incomprehensible and wrong".]

[but i do nonetheless think it's worth being aware of a fandom tendency to make femslash relationships a throwaway line in order to enable m/m slash ones - and to think about how just smashing two female characters together without exploring how the relationship would align with their canon personalities doesn't necessarily help...]

[lurksunderthebed]

Hi, I saw that you had a discussion about the queerness of our beloved characters. I really hope you’re not tired of that topic, because I wanted to add another point.

First of all I don’t really care. I really like the dynamic between most of the characters, especially Ghost and Soap, but I don’t care if it’s interpreted as besties or lovers. I think both is fun.

I just wanted to add that maybe all of the MW story feels so fucking gay, because we lack cool women? We have Farah and Laswell, but let’s be real Farah is basically married to Alex (I thought they were a couple at first) and Laswell is married to a woman. Now people go great lengths to ship the male characters with female villains, who only appear in a small fraction of the story and have no real chemistry. I mean they can do whatever floats their boat, but I don’t really see the point here.

Which leaves us with a bunch of man ‘flirting’ with each other vor comedic value. I think given this and the points you already said on your account, I think it’s even a bit intended that most of our characters might not be the straightest.

Sure, a bunch of straight men can exist without women and still be straight and the military still might not be the most women friendly institution, but I think having more girlpower would have been an easy way to make everyone appear more straight and the devs didn’t go that route sooooo… (I still would love to have more cool women, but that’s another topic)

Anyways, I hope you have a good day and I wanted to add that I really enjoyed your character analysis posts <3

Ahh thanks for enjoying my analysis posts. 💞🥹 Honestly, I'm still surprised people are reading them lol. (And asking me about it haha)

But yes, I don't think I'll ever be tired of the ol' queerness discussion. It's a fun topic to debate especially with these characters in this particular game.

Controversial take, but I actually don't think adding any extra female characters would've been helpful in making the 'gay' go away.

(gonna be a long discussion here, settle in if you want to read it haha 😅)

What we have to put in mind, is that this game wasn't made for the female audience. The vast majority of the people buying and playing it are going to be male. That's the facts. It's going to cater to men.

A game made for men is going to have a majority of those characters be male. Adding new female characters in a REBOOT series is a delicate task when a good chunk of the population playing have played the OG and want to see legacy characters back (which are all male—the OG was all men).

That means that when we look at why certain things are framed and why there aren't many female characters, and especially why there isn't much of any confirmed (het) canon romantic ships between any characters, it's because the game itself isn't focused on it.

That same vast majority of men don't actually care about ships in general and with people trying to be more progressive, any female characters introduced are painstakingly written to omit any overt possibility of romance. In one sense, it's a welcome change from the action movie style plot line where man + woman = relationship with the women being just side characters/window dressing to the MC.

Women here are shown to be tough, that they don't need a man at all. They have their own agency. It's pretty nice actually that they did that. None of the female characters are infantilised nor is there a sense of them being there to "check boxes" in the minority bag. They make sense in the framing the game has placed them in.

But we do have this interesting dynamic whereby removing the romance factor, but having female characters in a setting that most are conditioned to read as man + woman = relationship, it de-emphasizes heteronormality and actually emphasises the relationships between the core characters.

And with a game full of men, that means the relationships between men are going to be the focal point.

Adding extra female characters, wouldn't have changed any of this, because the writers have gone out of their way to not make romance a plot of any sort. (There's a whole other discussion on the flaws of trying to give women agency/proving strength of character, but by doing so, taking away their sexualities by removing any sort of romance, but that's beside the point)

I think there's also an argument to be had that meaningful relationships with others don't have to necessarily imply romance between characters. It's totally fair to be sick of always having romance injected in to these sorts of relationships. That's an extremely valid take.

But there most definitely is a double standard that everyone is operating on. And we see that when we compare Alex/Farah's relationship with Ghost/Soap's.

Alex's most meaningful relationship is with Farah. He sacrifices himself for her cause and loses a leg for it. He comes back and stays by her side. Most people assume to take it as Alex is in love with Farah. We never see any type of flirting between the two. In fact it's mostly Farah testing Alex and looking at their dialogue you can tell there's respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

Yet it's just assumed by virtue of Alex and Farah being man + woman, that they must be together because of how much Alex had sacrificed. Completely ignoring the possibility of Alex doing so because he believes in Farah's cause and was sick of being jerked around with no choice by higher ups who largely didn't care about the suffering of Farah's people. Suffering that the man had personally witnessed. But no, he must be in love with her. (If Farah was a man, their whole relationship would be read as platonic with Alex's beliefs as a focus, not him being potentially in love)

Ghost's most meaningful relationship is with Soap. Soap has changed Ghost's whole MO as a lone wolf, and has challenged his very notion of trust. Ghost tests Soap and is proven wrong when Soap survives despite the odds. We even see them have plausible deniability flirting/snark. They are framed as a unit and on the off times (off of missions in cutscenes), they are always physically together. There's definitely respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

By itself, their relationship seems innocuous, but looking at the context we see a very different picture. Context matters heavily in seeing how this relationship has changed Ghost/the importance of it to him. It's assumed that Soap is the first person in god knows how long, that Ghost is emotionally attached to. What constitutes a normal, albeit flirty and snarky, friendly relationship for most, is amplified for Ghost in the glaring fact that he really doesn't do this for anyone else ever. As far as we can tell for a man that appears to live his job, Soap is Ghost's most important person.

We can even arguably say that Ghost and Soap had a flirtier, friendlier, more emotional relationship than Alex and Farah ever had, yet it's assumed (by the male audience) to be completely platonic by virtue of them both being men.

For all those people who argue to stop shipping characters, those same people turn around and are completely implicit in the notion of Alex and Farah being a thing.

It's a really annoying take, because you and I know that it's not the romance they're bothered by. It's the idea of having a character that exemplifies the silent male loner badass archetype as anything but the pinnacle of masculinity. IE, totally and utterly straight.

I feel I could go on about all the ways Ghost surprisingly subverts his archetype, but I'll leave it there. This is prob already too long 😅

But yes, having new cool female characters is always good, but it still wouldn't settle any sexuality debate since they would most likely be written without any hint of romance between the core 141 group and that potential new character. Just like how Farah and Laswell, as you said, have been both removed completely from the romance/sexuality debate, any new female character would also be put under similar framework.

I suppose it would just make them appear more straight (and get rid of all the speculation) if they had a new female character added into 141, but I don't see the point of adding a new character for that sole purpose. And tbh, it would come across as insulting to women if they did for that one reason.

Given how little character development we had in the latest game, I heavily doubt they would introduce new characters at all when they barely showed anything of the current ones we have already. We need more development of the characters we have, adding someone new would arguably take away from building proper relationships/dynamics between the characters we do have currently.

But yeah, heh. I'll stop for real now. If you got this far in my latest Ted Talk™, kudos to you good sir 🫡, you have all my love ☺️

Hope you have a great day too nonny, and I hope this helps with the discussion. Feels like I went off on too many side tangents. 🤔🤔🤔

[lord-squiggletits]

Salty Ask List: 1, 5, 14, 22 ?

1.What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Dr/atc/het 100000%... I just don't understand what their chemistry is supposed to be together. It's partially ruined for me by Drift in MTMTE being an absolute mess of a character who got most of his planned plotlines cut or changed, and partially ruined by the fact Drift spends most of MTMTE straight up absent from the story, and then he and Ratchet meet up in Empire of Stone and come back during Dying of the Light and are just...together romantically now? I don't understand how they have any chemistry at all much less romantic lskdjflkds

I know a big one people talk about is "Ratchet saved Drift's life and then told him he believed in him" but... the way their meeting was written didn't come off as particularly romantic to me? Ratchet saved Drift the same way he's saved countless other addicts in the Dead End and then his parting words to Drift were to tell him to go to the Functionists so they could get him a job. Very "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kind of advice that clearly didn't work since Drift stayed impoverished, his friend got killed by police brutality, he went into the underworld to be a hitman, etc etc. Like yeah in theory it's very romantic for an OTP's first meeting to be one of them saving the other's life and treating the impoverished person kindly for possibly the first time in their life. It's just that that moment in canon doesn't have romantic vibes to me at all, it's just a doctor-patient encounter in which Ratchet is nice to Drift like he's nice to everyone, except it's also kind of condescending/ignorant bc Ratchet basically tells Drift "oh just get a job and get clean and you'll be fine" as if it's that easy to stop being a homeless/jobless drug addict?? If an ER doctor did that shit to me I'd be more likely to see him as an asshole than to admire or like him at all sdklfjsd.

Then Drift was a Decepticon for millions of years, then he joined the Autobots on Earth and like... he and Ratchet sure existed on the same team together dlkfjldsjlkds there were zero interactions of worth b/t them in phase 1, their ship dynamic came entirely from JRO's writing and even then I feel like it's an informed romance more than an organic and believable one.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

I actually used to like O/Pli/ta when I first came here, but as I stayed longer it became evident that the overwhelming majority of the fan content of it reeks of "we are very sorry for having a heterosexual ship, let us compensate for it by making the woman a Girlboss Xtreme and the man a weak simp so that you can be sure the woman isn't being Oppressed and Stereotyped by being in a heterosexual romantic relationship" which is one of my most detested types of fan content, so now I have the ship tag blocked sldkfjlsdkdskl. Literally it's just the same "the woman is a TOTALLY COMPETENT AND COOL ACTION HERO and her man is a TOTAL SIMP FOR HER" that's interchangeable with most het ships in other fandoms, where there's no actual personality or chemistry for them and instead it's just the same Fandom Approved Heterosexual Relationship Dynamic.

That and a significant amount of content I see for it is just like blatantly ripped off from Me/go/p dslkfjsdfsjl or like, taking the main MOP dynamic and just swapping OP and Elita's places so now Elita is the cool action hero who's rival to Megatron and OP just Exists as an emotional support husband I guess. Or like Elita is made into a daring action hero while Optimus is reduced to a meek little wallflower who's no one of any real importance and just follows in her wake. It reeks of insecurity and unoriginality, as if the fanbase is cripplingly aware that Elita was made to be the Token Girlfriend and instead of just making her a better character and making the romance she's a part of more equal and compelling for both characters, they have to violently overcompensate by having Elita steal OP's role and everything interesting about him. 😂Like I'm begging people to just be normal about hetero ships. You can ship a man and a woman together without having to diminish the man and girlbossify the woman to prove you're a Real Feminist.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Continuity soup is boring and for the most parts creates purely fanon plots/ideas/characterizations that have tenuous relationships to actual canon. It's nice that people have the creativity to make their own AUs, but I also want to read about the actual continuity in question and not someone's mishmash of it.

Like UGH when I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to see cop Orion not archivist or dockworker Orion. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 I want to read about the Senate led by Proteus and the reigns of Nova/Nominus/Sentinel/Zeta, not about the Council from TFP. When I read a fic tagged IDW1 MegOP I want Orion being a simp for Megatron after reading his stuff/meeting him one (1) time sdkflsdkf not yet another iteration of the tired "one day an archivist and a gladiator became great friends! then they broke up."

It's not hate for other continuities, I'm just tired of the fact that continuity soup is so prevalent that even when I'm specifically filtering for content of the one continuity I want to read about, the fics I find keep having random shit from other continuities interjected into it. I think each continuity has really interesting takes on lore that have potential to be wholly unique for each one, so it's really frustrating when the average fic I can find is just a random mishmash of continuity elements, or more often than not just an IDW knockoff taking place in a separate continuity. Like guys, I'm an IDW stan myself, but wouldn't it be cool if we got more fics that explored ideas that only happen in G1, or only happen in Animated, or Aligned, etc?

Doesn't help that when I AM looking specifically for IDW stuff, most of the content I look at (MOP) does continuity soup for the sake of replacing IDW OP with some sort of aligned/g1 lite OP which makes me salty as hell

22. Popular character you hate?

Drift for sure sdklfsdlk. I mean when I first read about him in the comics (the Drift miniseries) I was like, he's fine I guess he's an action hero whatever. But then literally the more of the comics I read the more his personality and story were just incredibly corny, stereotypical, or boring as hell no matter what writer was controlling him. And he got bounced around between writers a lot, and then even the "main author" people know Drift from (JRO) kept changing his plans for what Drift was supposed to be (and cutting plots related to him) so any hints towards a storyline went nowhere. And then Drift spent basically all of MTMTE gone elsewhere on some exile-adventure, and then during LL he just kind of. Is there, existing.

So like, honestly Drift is a victim of getting bounced back and forth and having his writing changed so often he doesn't reach his full potential, which isn't really "his fault" as a character. It just so happens that I also think the bits of his character that exist are either boring or overhyped or in one case (portrayal of his religion/religious worldbuilding in general) outright offensive. He's basically written like some hippie stereotype with vaguely Asian/Japanese flavoring (the extent of which is basically his name + fighting style) and then he barely like... does anything in the plot? I think he's supposed to be like, ~mysterious and shifty~ but then all of the plotlines that involved him being a secret traitor got cut, so Drift basically just became Weirdly Suspicious For No Reason and his genuine personality/motivations felt indistinguishable from what he was faking and what plots got cut from him. Absolute mess of a character that got almost no payoff for any of the things planned for him, and all that's left is some kooky hippie personality of "hee hoo I believe in auras and mystical vibes and magical colors, also I'm dating an atheist who's openly dismissive of most of my religious beliefs (that I do or don't actually believe in depending on what part of the story I'm in) and this somehow doesn't get in the way of our personal/romantic chemistry

But then the fanbase are basically making him some kind of Gary Stue, obsessed with making headcanons like "Deadlock wrote/edited Megatron's speeches for him too!" and "Drift defected from the Decepticons to try and make a point to Megatron!" and generally trying to make him the Decepticons' Specialest Boy Ever and it's just. Ugh I get that he was under-written in canon, but every bit of fanon I've encountered doesn't make him interesting either. They just kind of make Drift the center of the world where he's actually the coolest, most talented and interesting person ever where other characters owe their accomplishments partially to his influence and I'm just. I don't get it, I don't understand the appeal of fanon and I don't even understand the appeal of canon either. I think part of it is for representation reasons (e.g. Asian, lower class, former drug addict) and it's nice that people can pull something meaningful out of the mess that is canon. It's just for me, canon Drift is so mediocre I don't get why anyone would even WANT him as representation sdlkfjsdlkf. I guess fixing what the writers failed to explore the potential of is an understandable motivation though.

[freneticfloetry]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Will I ever get enough of these? No? Thanks to @liminalmemories21, @strandnreyes, @welcometololaland, and @reyesstrand for the tags!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

45. RIP to the lost works of my OG fandom, published on a ship board/archive that no longer exists. (I still have most of them, they just won’t be seeing the light of day. Like ever.)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

368,184. (Again, RIP to all those now-unpublished words — with them I’d be somewhere around 800k.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

LOL So glad this question is phrased the way it is. Right now, I’m only actively writing in 911 Lone Star fandom, though I have a WIP in Magicians fandom that I fully intend to finish. Historically, I’ve written in about 40 fandoms (36 on AO3), most with a single fic. Thanks, Yuletide!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me), The Hunger Games Trilogy (I get a kudos email for this one at least five times a week. How are people still finding and reading this little fic?)

Lost in Translation, The Losers

Deck the Halls with Daddy Issues, pre-film Avengers MCU

Big Girl Pants, New Girl

Shells of a Long-Ago Lifetime (Faces That Once Were Mine Mix), Supernatural

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

99.9% of the time, absolutely. Comments are my biggest motivation — the serotonin section fuels my muse. If people take the time to tell me they read and enjoyed a fic (especially if they tell me why), I like to at least thank them for that. There have been times when Real Life has been Happening A Lot and comments on the more popular stuff have gotten by me, and I feel weird about going back months after the fact to respond — that Hunger Games fic, for instance, has a couple pages of unanswered comments.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Posted, probably Of All Our Yesterdays. I am typically an Angst with a Happy Ending writer without fail, but the boys of the Black Dagger Brotherhood don’t do typical happy, and Phury is lowkey the angstiest of the bunch.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I’m actually gonna say scenes from an unfinished story, because I think Quentin Coldwater having this happy ending, the way this one happens, is the biggest fuck you to show canon and its creators that I could possibly craft.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I recently got my first hate comment! I posted about it, but I’ve also left it up in all its glory.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do now! Not that I haven’t in the past — I wrote several het scenes for my very first ship, and Quentin and Eliot had some delightful married kitchen sex we picked up right in the middle in What Baking Can Do — but I feel like Tarlos has really helped me unleash my inner smut writer. My smut from Carlos’ POV has a lot of feelings (LOL), but the stuff I’m writing from TK’s POV is a little sillier and dirtier and more fun. With feelings.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do love me a good crossover. Outside of canons I’ve crossed that exist in the same universe (We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, in Jessica Jones/Luke Cage fandom, plus And to All a Goodnight, for two Jennifer Crusie books), I once wrote tens of thousands of words of a ridiculously plot-heavy Roswell/Angel crossover that will forever hold a soft spot in my heart, a randomly cracky and super angsty Supernatural/Grey’s Anatomy, and a minor character-focused Supernatural/Sarah Connor Chronicles, Requiem, that I still sort of love a lot.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

That Hunger Games fic has been swiped a few times. Weird.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, the Hunger Games fic — it exists somewhere on the internet in Dutch. And that one, the SPN/TSCC crossover, and an old Dexter fic, Dinner and a Show, have been podficed.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! An old friend and I once cowrote ~25k of our idea of fluff, which was basically hijinks, smut, and torturing our leading man with a boom box and Billy Joel.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

For ships that I’ve written… Hmm. I think, before I wrote to build a home, I would’ve said it was a tossup between Tarlos, Queliot, Chlollie, and Jules/Robin from Troubleshooters, but now there’s just no contest. Weewoo Husbands for the win. For ships in general, Tarlos still tops the list, alongside the ones I mentioned, the OT3 (Eliot/Hardison/Parker), Arthur/Eames, Phedre/Joscelin from the Kushiel’s Legacy books, Frank/Karen from the Netflix Marvelverse, Aidan/Sally from Being Human US, and my MCU crack cube of Steve/Nat/Bucky/Sam.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

God, this is such a throwback, but it’s probably Adagio in B-Flat, the Sherlock music porn murder mystery I half wrote and got hopelessly blocked on.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I’d say, especially banter. And understanding characters, I guess? I’m good at making characters sound like themselves, whether they’re speaking or internalizing. And, I’m now proud to say, plot. That’s something I wouldn’t have dared to claim this time ten years ago.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oof. Brevity. I have completely lost the ability to write short (and, by extension, to the point). I’m also the slowest writer in the world, thanks to my tendency to edit every sentence within an inch of its life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

My Lone Star mutuals are laughing right now. Clearly I hate it. 😊 I’ve written three fics that feature Spanish, two sort of significantly, and all my old Firefly fics have some Mandarin in there somewhere.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OG Roswell. So much OG Roswell. Michael/Liz, specifically, with a side of Kyle/Isabel.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It almost feels like cheating, since it’s my most recent fic (and the only one I’ve published so far in my current fandom), but I’m so stupidly proud of to build a home. Carlos is such a touchstone character for me that writing him was oddly therapeutic. And I think I’ve said this before, but writing the two of them together was like the evolution of the clarity I found writing Queliot, which was the first time I’d really explored a ship in fic where I loved both halves of the pairing even close to equally — it helped me unearth my Carlos and who he is in my heart, but it also helped me uncover the true depth of my love for TK.

No pressure tagging @orchidscript, @heartstringsduet, @never-blooms, @rmd-writes, @walkinginland, @paperstorm, @mixtapestar, @catanisspicy, and @alrightbuckaroo!

[avi17]

Maybe I'm just seeing more of this than usual since I'm in my biggest fandom in a long time but like. I feel like the kids today have very much forgotten that you're allowed to just...ship a thing. You're allowed to think the characters had interesting potential and just. Do the thing. You don't have to dissect eye movement and body language and where people are standing and stuff to prove it's canon- that stuff is chemistry, and it can be real and present without it being intentional. Doesn't make it any less real, but also doesn't make it some kind of conspiracy- there are movies from 70 years ago where actors had interesting chemistry that comes off homoerotic, but that certainly doesn't mean they were playing it that way on purpose. You don't have to wildly skew stuff actors say in interviews either, putting words in people's mouths is actually a little creepy.

I think we're at the point with queer representation and canon queer ships where we've had enough of it turn out to be real that we want it to always be real, and we feel like we have to prove it is real to feel valid in shipping it. I'm here to tell you that you don't have to do that.

I'm not saying those ships SHOULDN'T be canon, I'd love them to be. In some cases the story would be way better if they were. But you don't have to prove they were Canon All Along to be allowed to enjoy them. And if you hinge your enjoyment of a piece of media made by cishet people on the idea that the actors are going to confirm your ship was canon, or feel like you have to validate your ship by insisting it will become canon, I feel like you're just gonna end up disappointed.

[outoftuneangel]

I think I'm really gonna sound as a whiny bitch, but one thing is saying "I ship Akira with Miki so much, they love each other!" and another thing is saying "Stop it, it's obvious Akira has only Miki in his heart and Ryou will never have him, you're ruining Devilman with your yaoi shit."

[clawsnoir]

honestly the way fandom's completely dismissing selina and discounting her romance is giving me war flashbacks to how star wars treated finn and what was clearly the start of a romance with rey in favor of shipping her with a white fave that had spoken to her like once in the first movie- characters of color with good characterization and explicit romances always get sidelined in online spaces and it's so frustrating to see good writing get overlooked for white mediocrity. the batman 2022 easily has the most well written depiction of selina in a live action movie and zoe kravits deserves a lot more love than she's getting for portraying her in such a nuanced way!

i have never seen a star war, my beloved anon friend, but I'll take your word for it.

the racism is just...it's really blatant and it makes me feel so uncomfortable and angry some days. I don't know if you're familiar with the term 'empathy gap' but that's a big part of what's at play here and what's driving the fandom dynamics. a lot of these fans have latched onto the riddler for the sole reason that they find him easy to project on...because he's a white man.

so much riddle/bat content is self-insert at it's core. and a lot of the fans admit this! that they relate to and connect with him because he's a sweaty awkward white dude who's obsessed with Batman. nevermind the fact that he's also... y'know ... a malignant narcissist and a domestic terrorist who only cares about his own notoriety.

I've talked about the woobification before but I need to say something else about it because it's driving me insane. the way the riddler stans analyze the text is all centered around their woobifying of the character - their need to believe he was right, that he's deserving of sympathy and a happy ending, colors their view of the entire film. it's why so many of their fanworks cannibalize the batcat dynamic. they write about bruce being obsessed with edward, wanting to protect him after learning about his traumatic past, changing his ways to better the city out of love...it could not be more obvious if they fucking tried.

yet these same fans go on and on about how the romance between bruce and selina was forced. how she could have been the cut from the movie entirely. the deuteragonist of the story, who is integral to the narrative and to the character development of the protagonist! it's just so fucking clear the reason they can't empathize with her is because she's a black woman.

it makes them uncomfortable, to see selina given that space in the narrative, because they think it should have been occupied by a white person instead. it's that simple.

well, sucks to be them, because bruce and selina are canonically in love 💕 they will have to put up with seeing what they think of as *their* batman be head over heels for the beautiful, black, cat burglar who stole his heart. they can cry all they want about boring het romance, I'm a full on dyke who isn't projecting on either on these characters but I can still enjoy myself in fandom. sometimes you just have to learn to enjoy stories that aren't about you :)

[masterthespianduchovny]

As much as I understand the need for queer representation, queer shipping around mlm ships tend to be misogynistic as fuck. Doubly so if one of the male characters has a canon female love interest. They have to shit on her and "punish" her for interfering with a ship that isn't canon and was never going to be canon.

And that's important to note because, within the last few years, fans of these ships frame these relationships as barriers to their preferred ship or they get mad that there isn't an open ended to pretend these two characters ended up together.

As if this is somehow the fault of the female characters and not the writers. Most importantly, it overlooks the fact that, more times than not, these character sexualities were considered and there is a vague outline of where they might end up. It's unfortunate that queerness isn't often considered, actually very little, but it's not okay to engage in misogynistic rhetoric all because your mlm ship didn't happen.

From my own personal experience, a prime example is Steggy.

Steve is framed as straight. Maybe there's a chance that his bi--idk. But the MCU has always positioned him as being into women with the subtext that he'll end up with a woman. Yet, because he ended up with Peggy, she's constantly attacked and doesn't "deserve" him because she didn't know him as long as Bucky. She's been called all sorts of derogatory things, slandered, criticized for random bullshit, etc. Reduced to just her reproductive parts, having ageist remarks leveled at her, and so forth.

Most of this didn't exist before Endgame, but after Endgame, the attacks are non stop. People are triggered whenever she comes her. All because Cap chose her over someone he wasn't even interested in. All because fans shipped him and Bucky together and the MCU didn't bend to their will.

Another example: Darvey. Harvey and Donna from Suits.

No one has to like a character, but usually, the way certain fans rip into Donna usually ends up with it being a Marvey shipper. They'll contort truth, ignore details, and color her in the worst possible light to prove how she's bad for Harvey, yet ignore all of Harvey's bullshit to prove how he and Mike are MFEO.

Let's be clear: I don't fucking care if people ship non canon ships or think two other characters, whether or not they're the same gender, are better together. However, When you're being misogynistic and sexist to upload your OTP, you can rightly fuck off. It's so easy to ship what you like without bringing that bullshit into it.

Tragically, many of these critics are women who have massive internalized misogyny, but believe they are being progressive, inclusive, and ship without prejudice. If you're tearing women down to uplift any ship, even if it's queer, that's not progressive and feeds into the patriarchy.

It's okay to prefer something else, it's not okay to feed into a pre-existing, harmful, and sexist narrative.

And it's really bothersome because these same people call themselves trying to validate the LBGTQ community, many of these shippers are straight (which this opinion is based on various discourses and criticisms of how gay characters are written in these stories and dialogue surrounding them) and ironically end up invalidating Bi, Pan, and NB people.

Some of these ships are due to these characters being hot, which is fine.

Other times it's due to chemistry, which is also fine.

But as another person argued years ago, one of the reasons why mlm shipping is so popular and prevalent is because male dynamics are actually fleshed out and explored meaningfully. This leads to wanting to ship characters who have real relationships, conflicts, and history with each other no matter how small or large.

However, the issue comes in for some because it's not canon. These meaningful relationships aren't romantic and many women tend to want some romance included, which isn't a bad thing. But when you know the romance will never happen, it's easy to get upset about that. And they know people who ship canon pairings have that over them, which is infuriating.

Which is understandable.

Regardless, diminishing, trivializing, and insulting women is not okay, esp when some of these women have the relationships with men that are usually reserved for male dynamics.

Donna and Harvey have a long, complicated relationship that is based on a professional dynamic, friendship, and romantic yearning. This was established in the first season and didn't come out of nowhere, yet people either ignore that, play it as one sided, go on and on about why they couldn't be just friends (they never were), and hilariously, refer to it as fan service.

Peggy and Steve develop a friendship of sorts, are supportive of one another, genuinely are in love with each other, and have worked alongside each other is criticized because Peggy didn't know Steve as long as Bucky. Appalling things are said about her.

Thing is: these aren't the only fandoms that do this. Trust and believe, whenever there is a major male pairing, if any woman is canonically paired with ether one of them, she's being attacked and called gross things. That's not okay even in the name of representation. If you genuinely hate this female character because of who she is and not because of her gender, I get that. However, a lot of it is gender based and it's quite obvious when reading these criticisms.

Wanting better and more representation doesn't excuse or justify shitty behavior.

Lastly, people factor in compulsive heterosexuality regarding their criticisms of various straight pairings. That's a validate take, however, we need to be honest about our issues with certain pairings rather than piling on undeserved hate towards female characters, and then have nuanced conversations about what this means in context to that specific series.

No. You're not going to have these conversations with show runners, writers, and actors. I get this. But some of you need to stop harassing others and acting like assholes because they don't support your pairing (which they don't have to). If you believe Steve is bisexual, then stop fucking harassing people who ship him with Peggy. If deep, meaningful relationships are important, then stop undermining them to push a ship. And stop turning women into fucking mascots in your fanfic and fan art to prop up your ship--that shit is so dehumanizing. Often times, when these shippers don't hate the women, they only exist to say, "when will these two silly kids get together?" OR "I'mg lad you two silly kids finally got together."

Turning a woman into a mascot isn't any better than harming her or killing her to fuel a man's story--even if the man is gay.

Ironically, I'm less likely to see this from wlw ships or ships that has more queer support and than het support.

Quite interesting.

[ladybirdwithoutdots]

do you really need to bring shipper wars in the Austen fandom too?

Full offense but people who deny Emma is in love with Mr Knightley and hate on him because they ship her with Harriet, and pretend she should’ve ended up with her, are bullshit.  I’m tired of these posts (including the Harriet stans whom I saw bashing even in some emma/knightley posts when fans of the latter are the first to make cute posts about Harriet too), and honestly, you all just make me feel very negative about Harriet and unable to truly appreciate her scenes with Emma.

Maybe I just don’t care about being a bitch but here’s what an Emma fan who is just tired of the anti Emma/Knightley crap honestly thinks about your nonsense:

Hating on the last Emma adaptation because Emma is in love with Mr Knightley and marries him in the end is as disingenuos and idiotic as hating a Pride and Prejudice adaptation because Darcy and Elizabeth are in love. Le duh!  You can ship him with Bingley and her with Charlotte (or Wickham, if that’s your mood I’m not judging shipping choices here) but if you watch a movie based on an Austen’s book you know what you are getting yourself into, especially when her canon romances tend to be very important plot elements for the protagonists and their character growth. 

I get it’s 2021 and hating all het romance makes some people feel woke and edgy, and I totally get alternative readings and things like that, but out of ALL Austen ships and all her female heroines, Emma is the one female character who doesn’t even need, neither want,  to get married and truly only does that in the end because she is in love.  Emma is the LEAST Austen heroine whose romance you should even question because she honestly only married the guy because of love and no other reason. �� Furthermore, unlike most of romances from that time, the guy Emma marries isn’t just some random guy she has met two seconds ago, it actually is her best friend, someone she knows since years and the one person who knows her best and loves her in spite of her flaws. Austen was very forward for her time with their romance, especially given the fact her male love interest actually decides to live with Emma and her father in the end instead of doing what every married man had the right to do at the time (take his wife to his own home where she’d have little to no power). Knightley and Emma are the (original) best friends to lovers relationship. He’s the best friend Emma had loved from the beginning without realizing it. It’s one of the main points of her story and the great irony of the novel that she thinks love isn’t for her, and she had never been in love, but she already is in love with him without realizing it because of their friendship. I’m sorry bro but that had never been Harriet, and it seems hypocritical tbh for some of you to want to give Harriet the story that Mr Knightley has with Emma, all the while hating on him and the romance. Even with the last movie, you have people take quotes de Wilde said about Knightley and Emma (e.g., the one about the movie making you think about ‘the best friend you maybe should have kissed’) out of context to manipulate others into thinking she was talking about Harriet instead (and queer baiting, which would be homophobic)

On one hand, we really do need more stories that put an emphasis on female friendships too and on other relationships that aren’t just the romance. On the other hand, it’s completely useless for writers to try to give us that  (e.g. de Wilde in the last Emma) if everytime two characters care about each other and share screentime together, people claim that relationship (and all scenes that make perfect sense with a normal platonic relationship) must be romance and romance only. It’s almost as if some of you never had a friend and therefore believe that everytime a character cares about another character they must be romantically in love with them. It also makes me believe, more than anything, that romance is the only kind of love that exists or is important for many of you. And if that is the truth, why even bother with fictional friendships then? Why even complain when writers don’t give us that if we are unable to appreciate those relationships as something of equal importance with romance?

I really can’t take people serioustly when they overinflate Harriet and her relationship with Emma all the while they minimize Emma/Knightley’s mutual feelings.  I read people who apparently find it harder to erase Harriet’s baseless crushes on every guy who gives her attention, than erase the actual love story and feelings of the protagonist! Tbh, even if you wanted a gay adaptation of Emma (and not one that is that just for the sake of), it would make much more sense to simply turn Mr Knightley into a female character, therefore still respecting the canon couple and Emma’s character arc, than ship her with Harriet. The latter is a weak alternative and frankly baseless for me because the only things she and Emma have in common is the fact they are both girls and they have an ‘e’ in their name. Full stop. Intellectually, Harriet is no match for Emma and their ranks in society are so apart that their relationship could never ever be equal (and it never was). I don’t want to be harsh but tbh I was never convinced they are actually friends in the novel, and the last movie made it even worse for they emphasized Harriet’s blindness about Emma’s feelings, and how one sided that dynamic is for it’s just Emma who makes an effort to be a friend in the end. Let’s be real here, Harriet doesn’t even know Emma and never really acts as a friend to her, unless your definition of friendship is ‘someone who worships you, and pretends you are the best and right even when you aren’t, as long as they perceive you as a savior who can help them'.  That’s not what being a friend means to me. It speaks volumes to me that the one and only time movie-Harriet actually notices that Emma is a human being with flaws and feelings too is when she gets angry because Emma wants the same guy she wants. I don’t know if Austen’s ‘naive and completely clueless Harriet’ is worse or better than de Wilde’s version but the latter really emphasizes one of the biggest issues of Emma/Harriet even more, to me. As a book Emma fan, before an adaptations fan, I read all kinds of comments about this novel and character but honestly, I never read any real convincing argument why Harriet and Emma should be a couple instead of her and Knightley. Most of what I read boils down to people taking things out of context and/or claims that Harriet is ‘better’ for Emma just because she’s a woman and she agrees with her all the time, while Mr Knightley is the bad guy because he’s older than her (he’s only 37, btw) and criticizes her ( as if Emma doesn’t need someone to criticize her, and her character growth isn’t dependent on precisely that). I get some people wouldn’t like to have someone who is criticizing them but worshiping someone is =/= being their friend or appreciating their real qualities. I also read people point up how much Emma praises Harriet in the book as proof that she’s in love with her, but the same ignore the many instances, especially after Harriet tells her that she loves Mr Knightley, that truly show Emma’s real colors and how much she still considers Harriet her, and especially Mr Knightley’s, inferior to the extent she regrets their friendship and thinks Harriet is ‘uppity’ for thinking Mr Knightley would ruin his reputation to marry someone like her. When I read those arguments it seems, if anything, that people want to have the cake and eat it by saying that Austen’s own story doesn’t matter (and she doesn’t understand her characters’ real feelings) when it comes to the things those people don’t like (eg the fact Knightley is the one Emma is in love with and all the explicit hints about that ), all the while still selectively using some of her writing to support their alternative version of the story. Now with the last movie adaptation, it’s even worse for me. It’s telling that the two scenes people romanticize as pro Emma/Harriet are two phrases/moments that actually emphasize the bad side of their relationship, and why their friendship isn’t good for either of them. The first is the scene when Emma says she ‘wants to keep Harriet for herself’: not only there is nothing romantic about that ( that line is in the book too as well as Knightley’s ‘your infatuation is blinding you’. You are reading a book written in 1800 with modern goggles though, and that alone doesn’t really work) but that phrase should actually make you cringe for it emphasizes how selfish and manipulative Emma is by treating Harriet like her new pet project just because she’s lonely. She doesn’t care about the girl’s feelings for Robert Martin, and what is truly the best for her due to her rank (and how dangerous it actually is for Harriet to not marry and find someone who can offer her protection), even if it’s what she tells herself, she only cares about her own desire to have a new female friend because she lost Mrs Weston and she feels lonely and bored. It’s also true, though, that she is still lying to Mr Knightley too because she does actually want to match Harriet with Mr Elton, that which is obvious in the other scenes, but even that is an expression of Emma’s selfishness and not really a hint of her caring, let alone loving, Harriet as a human at this point. If you read the book, it’s particularly obvious given the fact that Emma isn’t blind about Harriet’s feelings for Robert Martin for she knows that her behavior is bad and the girl actually cares about the guy, but she manipulates her into thinking Mr Elton is better because it’s her choice and she prefers him (until he proposes to her, of course. Then she thinks Mr Elton is trash for being so arrogant to believe someone of his rank could marry her) The second phrase people romanticize is only in the last movie and it’s that annoying ‘I refused Robert Martin because of you’ phrase by Harriet later in the movie. I hate that because, once again, that phrase has nothing ‘romantic’ about it unless you obviously ignore the context and what is actually happening there. Harriet is being passive aggressive with Emma there, gaslighting her and blaming her for the loss of her first suitor BECAUSE HARRIET WANTS MR KNIGHTLEY for herself. Harriet is angry with Emma there because she realizes she loves Mr Knightley TOO and Emma has more chances than her. The most likely sentiment behind that flippant phrase for me is something along the lines of Harriet impulsively telling Emma to move aside and let her have Mr Knightley because she made her lose Robert Martin already. She is trying to make Emma feel guilty, subconsciously or deliberately, but this surely is how Emma herself perceives Harriet’s words too for the poor girl really thinks it makes her a bad person to accept Knightley’s proposal in spite of loving him back. Harriet made her believe she was stealing her man and yet, AND YET, had Harriet been a real friend, to begin with, she should’ve realized Emma’s feelings for him way before she deluded herself into thinking the guy wanted her. But Harriet never cares about Emma’s feelings and even their reconciliation in the end is all, still, about what Emma needs to do for her. Not a word from Harriet about being happy for her friend too. Nothing.

Listen, I really appreciate de Wilde’s attempt to make the Harriet/Emma dynamic better than it is in either the novel or other adaptations, even if it personally doesn’t convince me it’s friendship. But I get it. Like I said at the beginning, it’s important that movies display different kinds of love too beside romance and if you can’t do that with characters like Emma who are the protagonist then when you can even do that? I think it was valid for her and Catton to want to emphasize the fact that Emma, at her core, is truly young and lonely and she doesn’t have friends in the truest sense of the word (Mr Knightley is one, of course, but their point is more about her having a female companion too whom Emma could do more ‘girl’ things she can’t do with her husband or father) but, honestly, I maintain no adaptation ever truly got their relationship right. No one.  Overrating them and pretending that they are best friends forever when there is no substance for that is as incorrect as an interpretation of Austen’s writing as it is treating Harriet as a silly girl Emma barely tolerates. I appreciate the movie shows Emma’s conflict about Harriet when Knightley proposes to her because most of adaptations don’t do that: in the book she really, for a moment, feels so bad for Harriet and feels simultanously happy Mr Knightley loves her but also bad for taking the guy Harriet wants. She is no hero who wants to give up about him to let Harriet have the guy instead, though, but it isn’t like she doesn’t care either. She does and it’s a source of anguish for Emma and part of her character growth that she actually cares and feels empathy for Harriet.

However, if you want Emma to have a real female friend that’s not Harriet and that’s not really the story Austen wrote and the role she gave to Harriet. Like many academics pointed up, like many of Emma’s ‘mirrors’ in the story, Harriet is put there by Austen to emphasize Emma’s immaturity at the beginning and the fact she deliberately doesn’t choose her equals as friends and picks Harriet, instead, as her new pet project because her inferiority makes her easier to manipulate and, like Mr Knightley very eloquently points up, she makes Emma feel superior and more accomplished than she is. Emma doesn’t want to be friends with Jane, for example, because not only she could be more her equal but she actually does see her as superior in the aspects that make Emma the most vulnerable and insecure.

It’s great the movie gave more space to Emma’s relationship with Harriet, and I get that if you want to put the spotlight on female friendship too it’s either Harriet or Mrs Weston but also, let’s not pretend the movie wasn’t focused very much on her romance with Mr Knightley too, perhaps more than other adaptations did. People commend this adaptation for showing his feelings for her more and it’s true, but I will also argue that this movie does emphasize her feelings for him more than adaptations usually do for you really see Emma’s feelings and jealousy towards him before she even realizes her feelings. It’s obvious since their first scene when she’s waiting for him and runs to her piano because she wants to get noticed by him. Her breath constantly hitches when he’s close to her or because of her feelings for him, and she definitely reacts to dancing with him. She may not know her feelings from the start, she might be in her own ‘work in progress’ to figure everything out, but the movie makes it obvious to me that she loves him. If there is any adaptation where you want to be disingenuos about their chemistry and deny their romance, this really isn’t the one tbh. Look, if you want to headcanon Emma as bisexual you’ll find me agreeing with you, but pro LGBT readings and actual representation doesn’t mean, for me, shipping two characters together just because they are the same gender and the writers make them care about each other a bit, or give them screentime. Like I said at the beginning, if I wanted a gay adaptation of Emma I’d rather make Mr Knightley a woman than ship Emma with Harriet or Mrs Weston or Jane. Because regardless their genders, it’s the Knightley character the one Emma loves and wants to be with, and it’s this character who truly represents her best friend and the person who knows her best. It’s Knightley the only one who cares about her well being so much that when she is being the worst version of herself and no one cares, he is the one willing to tell her even if he hates doing that and he feels he’s destroying every chance he has to make her love him back. It’s the Knightley character who ultimately inspires her to be a better person and loves her in spite of her flaws.

[hamliet]

when does a relationship become queerbaiting? theres a book that i really like and the 2 male leads characters have a lot of storylines and arcs where they get closer and i think some of the tropes used can be similar to the typical romantic tropes, neither of them end up with anyone at the end of the story since its more about found family and the long journey the whole cast goes through. they even get shipped by another character as a running gag. personally i always saw it as being open to interpretation but recently the revised edition of the original novel came out and there were several lines those 2 characters had about each other that were kinda toned down, i didnt think much of it but i saw a post about how it was clearly baiting and the author was being homophobic for toning it down. i didnt think it counted as baiting since as far as i know, the novel was never advertised as anything with romance and the author never pretended they were gonna end up together. i am definitely a little weirded out by the decision to change those specific lines but a lot of the story stayed the same, including a lot about their relationship so idk what to think.

i guess im more confused on if it counts as baiting, or even substext??

Sooooo I am not the best person to ask about this, because I’m a cis woman who has thus far in life only been attracted in a romantic sense to cis men. I can talk a bit about baiting as a general concept in fiction, but you should definitely take it with some grains of salt. 

Baiting, for me, is like deliberately playing up an aspect writers have no intention on delivering on. Usually this is done for ratings, to tease fans, fanservice, etc, but without payoff, it is just bad writing. Red herrings are good in writing, but only can be successfully used if the actual result is more satisfying than the herring. This applies to writing in general, not just to romantic ships. However, when the baiting involves historically underrepresented groups for no reason other than to get fans to spend money consuming the story, I think we can all agree that becomes something more grotesque than just bad writing: it’s insensitive, socially irresponsible, frankly hurtful. 

Some common examples are Bridgerton which has a gay character, who is extremely minor, yet they played up this character in advertising. Also, Rizzoli and Isles I think actually had its producers mention deliberately playing up the lesbian subtext to hook the audience without ever intending on following through. 

That said, context also matters. Like, there are aspects of the culture of the work’s author, the target audience, and such that come into play here also (so like, romantic tropes differ by culture. For example, enemies to lovers is common in Asian stories but less in the west, and the “girl who pursues a guy” is extremely common in Japanese shonen in particular, while it is very much a cringe trope that almost never results in romance in American fiction. So if a writer reads, say, tropes that are common in America into a Japanese work and says it’s baiting, that’s quite possibly not the intent even if it may have been the experience of the reader. So even if there was no intent, there can still be hurt, and that hurt can be real, if that makes sense. 

The definition of what constitutes ‘baiting’ varies. I do think that, in true Tumblr fashion, the term gets thrown around a lot and loses its intended meaning, or is so rigidly defined that creators can meet the letter of the “not a bait” requirement while ignoring the spirit of it.

To start with the latter: regarding something hitting the letter of what most wouldn’t consider baiting yet not really the spirit, let’s look at The Rise of Skywalker. This movie had a genuine lesbian kiss in it... between two characters we’d never seen more than a glimpse of while others are celebrating around them. Since it has a kiss, it’s not baiting, right? Well... the director deliberately said in the lead-up to the film that he included it because he “wanted LGBT people to see themselves in the film.” If “see yourselves in the film” is like a nanosecond of background, then, like... idk. Baiting or not, it feels icky, and I know some people consider it baiting and some don’t even if they don’t like, love that representation. But I think this is more queerbaiting than like, Nobara and Maki, who don’t have explicit romantic coding. 

Going back to the former, in terms of ‘queerbaiting’ losing its intended meaning... I think there are a lot of really poorly written romantic ships out there, often het, while a lot of same-gender relationships are really well written regardless of whether there’s romantic coding within the text. The main emotional energy in stories with 90% male characters (as frankly many if not most stories are, great job world) is probably between two men. There’s just so much more potential with well-written characters who share a lot of screen time, so of course people are going to ship them. In my opinion, this does not inherently make it baiting, but it certainly creates an environment that lends itself to baiting even if the writers aren’t intending to do this. 

Like, you could say the main emotional energy in BNHA is Bakugou and Deku. However, Bakudeku is 100% not queerbaiting. It’ll never be canon romantically (I don’t even ship it lol). There has been nothing to imply romance between them even if the main emotional message can be seen in their development. Deku/Ochaco is likely to be canon, but there is a significant lack of genuine emotional energy between them (the story’s plots and themes don’t coalesce around their relationship), so it’s probably going to feel forced. In contrast, Naruto/Sasuke had an actual kiss in canon, which while played for laughs is a lot more direct romantic coding than anything between Bakugou/Deku. I actually don’t think the majority of Narusasu is baiting, but I definitely think that one moment in chapter like 3 was really poor fanservice for yaoi fans, and has not aged well at all. 

It is also the case that fans can confuse headcanons with what is actually in the text, and that just never ends well. For example, Clover and Qrow’s ship in RWBY: a lot of people read Clover as gay, which led to “bury your gays” outrage when he died. A member of the crew stated explicitly they had never intended for Clover to be a love interest for Qrow, and truthfully here was nothing strictly romantic in their relationship--nothing like a kiss or a declaration of love or a parallel to another romantic couple. Hence, I don’t personally consider it queerbaiting or bury your gays, but a lot of fans felt that it was and their pain is legitimate even if I think textually the argument isn’t there. The one thing I do think is true about this in particular is that there was also no strict platonic coding, which encourages headcanons. Clear writing, yo. It can help. 

Note the word “can” not “will,” because strict platonic coding doesn’t always fix things, either. In what was probably a reaction to the outrage over Clover’s death, you had extremely blatant platonic coding of Ruby and Penny’s relationship this season leading up to Penny’s death. Ruby refers to Penny as “our friend” three different times, wherein “friend” sends a platonic message and “our” sends an even stronger message that it’s not about the two of them despite the fact that their friendship is one of the sweetest and most interesting in the show. A lingering Ruby-Penny hug then is followed by a lingering Penny-Weiss hug, then Yang, then Blake, etc. The writers went out of their way to hit people over the head with “platonic” and yet they have still gotten accusations of bury your gays and queerbaiting because people will see what they want to see in a story. 

Seeing what you want to see in a story also isn’t inherently bad. People who are underrepresented are going to have to read themselves into stories because Lord knows writers ain’t incorporating them well enough if at all. It’s why “Mary Sues” are common in fanfiction, which is primarily written by people who are not straight white men: because where the hell else are we to see ourselves in fiction? So essentially the macrocosm of culture creates this problem, both in terms of baiting and the misuse of the term, and the only fix is a shit ton more good representation.

[elegantwoes]

Hi! I’ve seen that you ship Naruhina, and I wanted to ask you your opinion on it? Even if I grew up with Naruto, Kishimoto’s writing is sooo sexist that now it’s hard for me to read the manga (I refuse to touch the anime, because it’s even more sexist). In my opinion, every female character is done dirty and underdeveloped, and the “romances” he writes are either weak or badly written. Every het pairing is hard for me to ship, because he simply can’t write a female character that’s properly developed, they exist only to further a man’s story, and when they try to do something on their own, Kishimoto finds a way to prove them incompetent, and has a man step in. And why are there so few kunoichis in comparison to male ninjas? Why are they written to be weaker, when a ninja’s strength is based on chakra and not only on physical power, and many kunoichis are shown to actually have better control on it? It makes me so mad! Honestly, I think Kishimoto should stay away from his female characters. Hinata had so much wasted potential: how awesome would it be, if Hinata’s arc was to change the Hyuga system? If she, together with Neji and her sister, tried to fix their parents’ mistakes, or even just to explore the issues? But complex arcs are only reserved for male characters, obviously. In fanon Naruhina is very cute, but in canon I can’t bring myself to ship it for the reasons I stated above, and also because I find Naruto too obsessed with Sasuke and Team Seven to see him in a romantic relationship. I don’t want to seem offensive, I would just like to read your opinion on a ship that, in my opinion, had wasted potential, and Kishimoto’s writing didn’t do it justice. Sorry if I bothered you!

All of what you said about Hinata and female characters in general in Naruto is true. I would have loved it if Hinata got the attention and care she deserved, and in many ways, I adore Hinata partly because of the massive potential she had as a character, however when it comes to Naruhina I have to disagree. It’s fine if you think Naruhina is cute in fanon, but the matter of the fact is Naruhina is already cute in canon. 

What I like about Naruhina are the opposite energies they have. Naruto is boisterous and loud, whereas Hinata is gentle and timid. It’s because of this that allows them to have an interesting effect on each other. Naruto inspires Hinata to be stronger and braver, and Hinata allows Naruto to be calmer and more vulnerable. Also, it should be noted that Hinata is the only girl who ever made Naruto blush. 

I love how when Naruto deeply wants to be acknowledged by people in his village Hinata already did that and was one of the first people to acknowledge him. It moves me how when Naruto was acknowledged by the village for the first time his first thought went to Hinata and what she would think of his heroic win. Also while Hinata’s feelings for Naruto have been explicit from day one Naruto’s feelings for Hinata are more implicit. Kishimoto preferred to voice Naruto’s feelings in how protective he is of her. It’s when he glares at Neji after the Neji vs. Hinata battle and swears to take him down. It’s when Naruto was ready to unleash Kurama onto the world just because he thought Hinata was dead. And if that wasn’t enough Kishimoto even goes out of his way to tell that Naruto is seething with the worst emotions he ever felt. All of that because of Hinata. It’s when he cries out in relief when he realizes Hinata is still alive. It’s when Naruto realizes Hinata is in danger and instinctively wanted to save knowing fully well he would be entrapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. 

Is this the best romance ever told? Of course not. Could Kishimoto have expanded on it through making Hinata a multifaceted character? Absolutely. However with that said, in the realm of Naruto, Naruhina is easily one of the better-written romantic couples. Kishimoto laid a decent amount of groundwork in order to make Naruhina as an endgame couple work. So yes there’s a good reason to ship Naruhina in canon. I hope that this clarifies enough, dear anon. 

[oddone95]

The Cycle of Hatred in Naruto fandom.

Ok, so I just wanted to write a little post on why this fandom (Naruto fandom that is) needs to chill and stop hating on each other so much. But first, let’s get clear in our minds that “Naruto” is a business franchise, and the goal of any business venture is to earn 💰. Earn money by evoking emotions in you. Now that this is clear, let’s move on. This will be a short (not rant) but rather advise to the various “camps” in this community.

1. To the remaining NaruSaku bunch:

Yes, I get it, you’re disappointed with the ending. Yes, you wanted Naruto with Sakura and apparently you cannot see how in the world NaruHina even happened. But if you took your bias out for a bit, you would see that pairing Naruto with Hinata was THE ONLY positive outcome for Naruto romance-wise. Or did you really want Naruto to end up with a “prize” that never even ONCE expressed her desire to be with him romantically in any way, shape or form. And don’t bring up the fake confession because this is all that is. FAKE. To save the love of her life from sinking into darkness. And how can you go around Hinata’s heartfelt confession during the Pein arc? So, please STOP insulting Hinata and her fans - let people enjoy the canon pairings that were planned from the beginning of serialisation of the project.

2. To the very vocal SNS community:

I’ll just keep it simple. If Masashi Kishimoto wanted this manga to be shonen-ai or yaoi, he would’ve acted on it. Editor or not, Kishi stands behind his story. He always has. And please don’t bring the supposed “homophobia” into this. Homophobia is a very serious rl issue that affects millions of people worldwide and you’re NOT helping the cause by insulting and hating on people enjoying the het canon pairings of Narutoverse. You do realize that your rants about it only trigger more hate towards yourselves and the cycle of hatred goes on. So we all end up bashing real living breathing humans “for the sake” of inked characters.. Let it sink in.

3. To the die hard SasuKarin minority:

Bruh.. There’s so much I’d like to bring up here but I’ll stick to basics. Firstly, your claim to be Sasuke fans is ridiculous because you seem to view him as a mindless, powerless beta male that was harassed by a woman SO HARD that he decided to give it to her.. really?! Is that who you think he is? Because that’s what you all seem to claim by saying that “Sakura chased after him”. You take that line from Gaiden and take it completely out of context. Do you know ANYTHING about Sasuke? Anything at all? If there’s anything manga taught us about his character is that Sasuke Uchiha acts as he pleases. He did so when he first left the village, he did so when he killed Orochimaru, he did so when he fought with Naruto, he did so when he willingly gave up his old worldview, and he did so when he married his wife. And you bring up “rape” into the matter. Seriously?! Do I need to bring up the sweaty t-shirts, licking somebody all over and ravaging them in their sleep? Do I? Thankfully, Karin redeemed herself by worrying about Sasuke’s wife well-being enough to deliver her baby and by thinking about HER happiness in Sasuke Shinden. She clearly cares about the Uchiha family wellbeing more than you do. She moved on!! So should you.

4. To NaruHina and SasuSaku respectively:

There is NO popularity contest. Man, I can’t believe we’ve got to this. There is absolutely NO popularity contest between Sakura and Hinata, neither there is for their romances. They’re different, just as the girls are different, and the boys are different. There is no such thing as a cookies cutter perfect romance. They’re written differently and I’m thankful to Kishimoto for that. I wouldn’t want every couples way to the altar copy-pasted. SS is angstier and more complicated. Their history is different. Yes. NH has been more subtle during the Shippuden but both pairings came together as was planned and we should feel proud and victorious that our ships made it to canon. But that’s too boring I guess. I guess tearing each other down is the new sport. So please tell me: what has Sakura ever done to Hinata except for being a good friend?! Same goes for Hinata. Can you put away your hate for Sakura/Hinata for one minute to appreciate the fact that the girls are ACTUALLY HAPPY! The way it was planned from the beginning. They’ve both suffered, ached and spilled tears for the men they love SO MUCH. And now they’re happy! Can’t we celebrate that?! This brings me to my next and final point.

5. To Sakura haters:

I’ll keep it brief. I honestly really truthfully DO NOT get WHY you hate on her so much.I REALLY DON’T.

5.1. For those of you who hate her for getting in the way of your ship, please see above. You really must either not have read the manga, or fanfiction.net is your source of truth. Hating her for being paired with Sasuke is same as hating Kishimoto for making Naruto a jinchuuriki because both canon facts were pre-planned by the author.

5.2. If you hate her for being mean to Naruto, then I suggest reading the manga past chapter 3 because this misconception gets debunked really quickly. You should stop refusing to accept the fact that Sakura really cares about Naruto as a friend and a precious teammate.

5.3. If you hate her for being “useless”, I don’t even know what to tell you because.. you know.. you don’t know the content of the manga called “Naruto” so why don’t you put away your bias for a minute and try to see what I see? All you have to do is clear your mind of all misconceptions and just read the manga with, you know, open mind?! To see how many lives she saved, how much of strength she has considering her humble beginnings, and how much valued she is in the village.

To the rest of Naruto fandom that gets swayed in every direction influenced by reviewers on social media, extremist shippers or even have trouble realizing that characters are fictional and nothing really happens to them unless it’s written into the canon verse by the author, I have one advice to you: please don’t let anyone’s opinions affect your judgement. YouTube reviewers are PAID to provoke and trigger you. They earn money by imposing THEIR ideas and theories onto YOU. Some of them bring their own life experiences into the discussion which only causes you to self-insert.

Naruto is an awesome manga! It deals with such important issues and carries such a positive message! Please, STOP ruining it by pointless wars that only fuel more hate!

Now. Going back to my first point about the money. Anime production studios have a huuuge interest in you staying glued to the screens. They’ll do anything to provoke you to talk about whatever happens on screen. They will bring their own bias into the mix, and fuel this madness even more. For the anime only fans I will say that you’re doing a huge disservice to yourself and to the work of art that “Naruto” is by only watching anime. It adds another layer of interpretation thus confusing you even more. Please, read the manga! It’s so worth it!

[silvysartfulness]

I got tagged by @ameliarating and @veliseraptor to do this writer meme thing!

How many works do you have on AO3?

Six. I only started posting fic on AO3 last year. Before that, many long years ago, I used my own websites and LiveJounal.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

177481. The absolute majority of which is of course Heaven Has A Road.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3, only The Untamed.

But before that, I've written for Disney Afternoon's Aladdin, Slayers, Kingdom Hearts, Assassin's Creed, and one-shot fics for my own original verses as well as my friends'.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It at 1194, unsurprisingly. It's my magnum opus on AO3.

Blanket Statement at 302. The first fic I wrote for the Untamed, and the first thing I posted on AO3 (Thank you, Lise, for holding my hand and walking me through it!)

And To Many More at 169

High Noon In Deserted City at 96, which is sort of funny, since it's just a picture and about 1000 words. But the premise is fun! Still hoping for some hungry writer to adopt it and write something for it. :)

Self-Inflicted at 75.

Which checks out, I guess – the longest fic with the most readers comes first, then the fluff, then the funny and finally the angsty and fucked up. XD

I still suspect The Plotbunny of Doom / The Renegades for Kingdom Hearts would score as my all time highest, though, if LJ likes and comments translated to the AO3 format. That fic took me and two friends three whole years to write together, was 104 chapters long and over 300k.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try! Comments mean everything to me, and I want to reply to them all! But when I'm low on spoons (which is unfortunately often) I fall hopelessly behind, and then the catching up becomes an impossible-looking chore in and of itself.

I should really set some time aside every day to catch up on the last few chapters' worth of comments... I do love the interaction and discussion a good comment can spawn!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hm... I write a ton of angst, but only a few actually have sad endings. I'd say Eaten counts, as does Self-Inflicted, I guess. TPBoD had a very open ending that was still definitely on the somewhat hopeless side.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Mm, it's not usually my favourite genre (though I mean, the whole Kingdom Hearts verse is a crossover in and of itself) but it depends a lot on the source material. I guess TPBoD might soft-count, since we tossed in a bunch of non-canon references with all the world-jumping.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not as such? Oh yeah, I do recall getting a very upset comment on a non-con fic I wrote back in the KH days, by someone who couldn't conceive how you could claim to love a character and then write such horrible things happening to them. But you get those occasionally. Look, crushing my favourite characters is therapy. Doesn't mean I don't love them.

The Russian fandom are loudly aggressive in their comments on some chapters of Heaven Has A Road, but that's more focused on the characters, not me personally.

On the whole, I've been pretty spared. But then, there's little point in sending hate; I just block.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Oh, absolutely. Haven't really gotten to that point in the posted chapters of Heaven Has A Road yet, but we're about to unleash it aplenty in the upcoming ones.

What kind? Most kinds, I guess? Soft and fluffy, aggressive and snarly, consensual, dubcon, non-con. Mostly mlm but I've written het, too. Can't remember if I've written wlw, but I've certainly headcanoned/drawn it. A bit of kink is nice.

I prefer focusing on the chemistry and sensations when I write porn, rather than detailed physical smacking and squelching and body fluids, but that's just my personal preference and writing style.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of? Not that I can remember? I have my art stolen regularly, and I've had my online identity stolen, but I don't think anyone's stolen anything I've written...

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Heaven Has A Road is being translated into Russian, and I'm insanely honoured and flattered!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes – TPBoD aka The Plot Bunny of Doom, aka The Renegades, for Kingdom Hearts. I wrote it over ten years ago together with a friend and my now wife. It was a monster of a fic, I think about 320k, and the fact that we were three people helping and pushing and encouraging each other really helped keep it going!

I don't know if I would have the focus for something like it now, but it was an amazing experience I'll always treasure.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh man, that changes with each hyperfixation... I may have to say Marluxia/Vexen for Kingdom Hearts, simply because it's a ship that's been around in my life for so long. I still occasionally go back to read favourite bits of the fics I wrote for them, including TPBoD.

Currently it's SongXueXiao from The Untamed, of course, and a very strong contender overall! I've dabbled a bit in poly ships before, but this is the first time I have one as my main, and I'm love them.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Uh. I don’t really have any? Because of my burnout-brain, I can only really focus on one major project at a time, and that's currently heaven has A Road. And I'm really, really hoping I will be able to finish it!

It's all plotted out, I just need to write the stupid thing. Working on it.

What are your writing strengths?

Hm, I'd say that I've developed a voice/prose over the years that I'm actually quite happy with! And I'm good at conveying/invoking emotion, if going solely by how many people comment that I've made them cry. :D

I enjoy writing dialogue, and I love working with layers of symbolism.

What are your writing weaknesses?

The actual writing process. 🙄 I'm extremely uneven and unstructured in getting the actual words down. Also convoluted and inflated text at times - sometimes I write a lot of words without actually saying anything. And English is my second language, so just nailing the correct phrasing and grammar can be a headache at times.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If it impacts the plot – like the POV character not understanding it, then maybe. And using terms that can't be translated, absolutely! Other than that, there's little point in making a text harder for the reader to grasp by tossing in whole sections in another language for clout. Is my personal view, at least, of course other writers may disagree.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

My first online fandom that I wrote fic for was Disney Afternoon's Aladdin show. Before that, I wrote original fic. And before that, before the internet was A Thing, I'd write and draw for stories that captivated me, just for my own entertainment. If you count that, I'd probably say Phantom of the Opera was my first – I had a whole ”everyone is a horse because that's what I know how to draw” AU when I was about 10 or so, that I'd draw lots of pictures for. When I was even younger, I used to make up stories for my younger brothers, based on movies and series we had watched together. I've always been a storyteller, one way or another, if only in my own head. I wouldn't know how not to.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I would have to say Heaven Has A Road, even though it's still unfinished. It's the first work of that sheer scope I have ever attempted by myself, and I'm honestly insanely proud of myself for what I have accomplished already!

Second would be TPBoD – The Renegades. Even though that was a shared effort, it's a very long fic that we managed to bring all the way to its intended conclusion, and I'm very proud of that, too!

Plus there are bits of both these fics I really like, and that I will go back and read for my own enjoyment occasionally.

tagging: @orodrethsgeek, @ebonykain, @fromaliminalspace, @chigrima, @soawen

[livvyofthelake]

what your favorite stranger things ships say about you

joyce x hopper: you probably just think winona ryder and david harbor are cool, and you’re right. we all know they’re endgame, and you’re like, why even try to resist it? yeah they have flaws, but you do not care and this show is about d&d monsters and you think will and eleven should be siblings so let’s just do this already, you know?

joyce x bob: rip bob. you really liked seeing joyce happy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. however, he is dead, and you should learn to move on from it. 

lucas x max: you just think they are neat. and you wish lucas has more screentime in st3, and more development in general. you are correct. 

dustin x suzie: you thought the never ending story scene was cute, and you don’t think st3 was that bad. you’re happy that these two nerds found each other at summer camp, and who wouldn’t be?

eleven x max: so you like madonna, and you thought el’s outfits in season 3 were bomb, good for you. you have never once belived that max mayfield is straight and that’s valid. 

will x mike: i bet you get/got good grades on your english essays. to ship byler is to be a crackhead, bless your heart. with every new piece of st4 information, your theories get more insane. however, some of you have a tendency to be Too Old, and you should check yourself for that. please stop being too hard on mileven shippers, the fact that you are gay does not automatically make you right. congrats on your english essays tho

steve x nancy: you probably just want steve to be happy, tragically, being in a relationship with someone who does not love him will not do that, get well soon. also, you’re het <3

nancy x barb: you believe strongly in the rich girl/ weird friend dynamic, and you thought barb was cute. you were doomed from the start. 

tommy h x carol: you think they were fun and you miss them. you’re probably gay and also homophobic :)

steve x jonathan: your brain is massive, your meat is huge, and your third eye is WIDE open. you see this garbage show not as what it is, but as what it could be, if it was written by cool people and not two guys who are still upset about being losers in high school. you will never be satisfied with the narrative of the show, but that doesn’t matter because you can live off your own dreams of what could have been. you tragic bastard, keep being a fucking genius. 

mike x eleven: you think you’re stanning an endgame couple, and you’re probably right, but you have forgotten that people do not marry the person they dated when they were 13. you think season 1 was sweet, and you loved their dynamic because it was genuine and nice. i can’t verify this but you probably hated the lost sister episode. please stop being mean to the byler shippers, you are more alike than you realize. 

jonathan x nancy: you are too tired to care about a non-canon, non-endgame ship, and you decided to settle. they’re kinda sweet, they have a nice vibe most of the time, and you like that natalia dyer and charlie heaton are a couple in real life too. or, you are just boring. 

steve x robin: brain worms. worms in the brain. het. :(

robin x nancy: you are a well meaning lesbian. there’s no hope for you at all and i’m so sorry <3 

[wanderingcas]

Just wanted to talk a bit more about your buddie post about strong friendships.

I agree that we definitely need to see more of them, and that it's really important to dismantling toxic masculinity that we do so. However, just sort of putting it out there - and I'm not saying this is what you were doing this is more flagging up a general thing - that as a queer person I hear this A LOT from het women (not making assumption about your sexuality btw) and it always sort of jars with me.

Mainly because the conversation will go something like me saying "look at how this story has been written, there's obvious chemistry/romantic tropes being used, this relationship feels like it would be romantic and the only reason why it's not is because of homophobia" and the answer back will be "yeah but maybe they're just good friends and that's also important?? Why do they have to be gay just cause they're close can't we just have more male friendships?"

Now I don't think they intend for it to be perceived that way, but it makes me upset/annoyed. Like I'm expressing this opinion that isn't even in canon and they're already trying to shut down the possibility of it. Like if they were gay they would feel like something has been taken from them, in terms of representation?

Again, totally not suggesting that's what you're doing here. Wanted to express that opinion though and get your thoughts?

hey, yeah i do agree with you about that - i guess i'm more in the camp of "if two people have a strong bond why do they HAVE to be romantic for that to make sense" - i feel the same about "straight" ships, too. like the buck/taylor kiss last night made me really disappointed because i liked the fact that they were setting up a strong friendship there, but it turns out it had to be romantic the whole time. so on the other side of things, it bothers me.

i was taking buddie specifically as an example, and not male/male relationships in media in general, because after the finale ive been seeing a lot of posts about how 911 queerbaits and doesn't have good representation, which is basically disregarding hen and karen, michael and his boyfriend, and other side character queer relationships we've seen presented on the show. which is why if buck and eddie are painted as just really close friends, that's okay to me, because in that particular scope of the show i don't feel like them not getting together is ruining queer representation or anything like that.

nothing would make me happier to see queer relationships every which way in media. we're still fighting for it tooth and nail. but at the same time, as someone who doesn't think romance is the Peak relationship someone could have, i don't want to just have romantic relationships everywhere in media equaling a strong bond - i think platonic and familial ones are just as important. that's more where i was coming from with that post.

so tl;dr i agree with you - when we see potential for queer relationships and get shut down with "why can't they just be friends??" that's really freaking problematic. but i wasn't coming from that angle - i WANT them to get together. there ARE potential romantic elements in their relationship, and if someone says they're not then that's just a big fat lie, but whether or not that potential is explored is the question, and i don't mind their relationship being platonic and representing a strong bond (in this specific show and example, not for the media in general)