#the pennylogue

[irondadfics]

Hi! I was looking for a fic of Peter being in history class and accidentally showing his class a video of the captain america civil war instead of the american civil war.

sorry for the wait, but could this be your fic?

[pennylogue]

Steven is a Diamond, and that’s okay.

So, Steven’s way too caught up in the fact that he’s a Diamond right now, and therefore a hideous and overpowered monster who can’t hope to be understood by normal humans or normal gems. Let’s talk about that.

For all Steven’s enthusiasm to be a Crystal Gem and to demonstrate his powers, he’s always been weirdly ashamed of how being half-Gem affects his ability to live alongside humans. I don’t think he’s ever really decided how to feel about it. It’s only after seeing Steven growing substantially and changing his hair and getting diamond eyes, now that it’s clear that his physical form is so malleable to how he thinks of himself and what he wants to be, that it really hits me how growing up with Greg and around so many humans has affected his identity. How sort of…quietly unhealthy it was, to go around with his gem covered up all of the time, and his appearance so determinedly human. I mean, think of how upset and ashamed he was when he decided his inhuman aging would screw up his friendship with Connie.

Right now, Steven is a whirlpool of self-loathing mixed into repressed issues and trauma with the Diamonds and hatred for his mother, and because he’s feeling so disconnected from and alienated and misunderstood by both other humans and other gems, because his gem powers are being triggered by his trauma, he’s connected some dots and blamed it all on being a Diamond. 

Looking back at that quiet “No,” at the end of “Fragments”, it’s easy to identify it as one of horrified realization. And you know, this is the logical conclusion of Steven’s feelings about his mother in “Mindful Education”, of “Storm in the Room”, of “Volleyball”—but it’s also the sum of a lot of other things:

Peridot: The Diamonds are the Gem matriarchs! …We live to serve them.

The culmination of Peridot flipping to the Crystal Gems is tied directly into her rejecting the Diamonds. Diamonds are introduced as the symbol of everything wrong with Homeworld.

Garnet: “How dare you fuse with a member of my court? You will be broken for this!”

…

Garnet: Pink Diamond thought for a moment, and then laughed; a wicked, empty sound. “You wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? Ha! Don’t be absurd. Return to your post, and I will forget your insolence.”

Diamonds are shatterers. They hate fusion. They hate Earth and organic life. They hate Garnet. They’re the evil queens in Garnet’s fairy tale. 

Garnet: The Earth belonged to Pink Diamond. Destroying her was the only way to save the planet. For Amethyst to be herself, for Pearl to be free, for me to be together. For you to exist.

Free will and the Diamonds are utterly opposed. It might be a tragedy that Pink Diamond was killed, but she was a monster, like the other Diamonds. The  ultimate enemies of the Crystal Gems.

We got almost five seasons of the Diamonds being spoken of this way. You see how terrified every Gem is of the Diamonds, whether they worship them or despise them. 

And then we found out a) Rose Quartz was one of them. And b) that Steven is one of them. 

Hey, quick question–anyone remember what Sapphire said, right in front of Steven, after the reveal?

Sapphire: Of course she was a Diamond. What a long road she took, to torture us all like this...

…Yeah, we never really got his feelings on b, did we?

I think Steven was so overwhelmed by everything else that was going on and everyone’s reactions, and later so eager to jump on the chance that being seen as one of the Diamonds gave him to fix the corrupted gems and help everyone, that we’ve never really seen him process this realization. Steven drew a very clear line in the sand. The Diamonds are the Diamonds, and Steven is Steven. The Diamonds are wrong about everything, so they’re also wrong about him being Pink, the same way everyone else in the series who’s called him another name has been wrong. He’s not Rose Quartz. He’s not Pink Diamond. 

Except…that second part isn’t true. Sure, Steven has a human body. Sure, Steven’s not the original Pink Diamond. That doesn’t mean he’s not a Pink Diamond. 

But it was easy back then, right? Because Steven was so, so different from them. A Crystal Gem. A defender of fusion. Weak. Small. Human-colored. Harmless. And as Steven says in the finale promo:

I don’t hurt people. I help people.

Yeah, there’s no way that building an incredibly black-and-white mindset with impossibly high standards for himself to create and hold on to a sense of identity was going to backfire.

So yeah, we never really saw Steven process that he was supposed to be one of these terrifying rulers. Except now he’s hurting people. In fact, it seems that all he can do is hurt people. And since he’s only able to see the bad things he can do, the amount of horrible power he has and how isolating it is and how terrifying it is–of course he blames it on what’s always seen as the source of so many horrible things. 

No wonder he’s having an identity crisis! He’s always told himself that he’s different than the Diamonds. He’s better than them. He has to be. So if he’s doing everything wrong, if he’s a freak, if he’s a shatterer, than it’s because he’s a Diamond. He’s just like them. He’s just as bad as them. He’s just as much a monster as the Diamonds are.

It’s complicated, what’s going on. Steven’s very, very wrong. But he’s also, strangely, right on target.

The thing is, this isn’t happening because he’s a Diamond, it’s because he’s human. He’s experienced trauma while growing up and is trying to react to it in a very human way. He literally has PTSD and CPTSD, and if you’ll look up the symptoms you’ll see he’s showing all of them. He’s not a monster. He’s part-human, so his symptoms are manifesting in partially inhuman ways. And that means he just happens to have the power to do a lot more damage than other humans when he lashes out in a way that is, once more, very characteristic for humans. But you know, even the best of humans can do a lot of damage, too, especially when they never really get over trauma. After all, Greg sure did a number on Steven. 

The flip-side of this is that the hilarious irony of ancient magical rocks trying to treat themselves as perfect and inhuman alien beings has always been that, that in reality, they’re every bit as fucked up and human as humans are. That’s the whole point of the Crystal Gems and the Homeworld Gems. Remember back when Garnet seemed so perfect? Peridot seemed pretty alien and unfeeling at the beginning, right? Jasper, Topaz, Aquamarine, it goes all the way up to the Diamonds. 

The whole point of the Diamonds and why the old system was broken was that the Diamonds tried to present themselves as perfect beings without flaw, when in fact they were all just as much a disaster as every other Gem. Remember back when Rose Quartz was a flawless goddess? Yellow and Blue were terrifying when we first saw them, but then we saw them comforting each other at the Zoo. They’re literally just a screwed-up family grieving and dealing with the death of one of their own–White’s first appearance painted her as this terrifying and totally inhuman being above even Yellow and Blue, but in the end, every one of the Diamonds is a normal, flawed person…just vested with the power to do a lot more damage than most.

The thing about White, was that she was so sure she had to be perfect, that she had to make everything better, but in the end, the solution was just to…let go. Accept that she was imperfect, and live with the consequences of it. Let other people help her. Stop trying to fit into being something she’s not, and just let herself be who she is. 

Does any of this sound familiar?

All four of the original Diamonds had destructive powers. All four of the original Diamonds experienced a change and made a conscious choice to control themselves and try to stop using their powers to negatively affect others. White Diamond might be stuck being White Diamond, but as “Homeworld Bound” made clear, she’s also the only one who gets to decide what that means.

So you know what?

You can call Steven half-Gem and half-human, but that doesn’t really describe what he is. He’s a human with a Gem. A Gem with a human form. None of that’s good or bad. It is what it is. And as much as it sucks to be different from everyone else, he’s also the only one who gets to decide what being different means to him. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz and he’s not his mom, but just like he’s a human, he’s also Pink Diamond, and that isn’t bad. 

And I think that’s what he needs to hear from everyone. The solution at Steven’s birthday party wasn’t to react to the situation they were in and cheer him up the same way you’d cheer up a baby. He wasn’t just a baby, he was Steven stuck in a body that he didn’t know how to control. What he actually needed was to hear from Connie that she wanted to be there for him, no matter how strange he was. 

He needs the people he loves to stop telling him he’s “better than” his trauma and his diamond powers, to stop freaking out at how much damage he can do or treat it like a problem to be fixed. To not tell him that they know he’s going through, they’ve been there, too. They haven’t, and that’s not what he needs to hear. He needs to hear that none of what he is is bad. That his loved ones will be there for him and will love him unconditionally. 

And I think that’s what will allow him to accept himself; accept that if he’s a Diamond then he’s also a human, if he’s human then he’s also Pink Diamond–and, just like the previous Pink Diamond, he’s the one who gets to decide what that means.

TL; DR I actually really hope diamond eye Steven is permanent for non angsty reasons. This kid needs to stop being ashamed of his identity.

[featherquillpen]

Just want to let you know I was rereading daemorphing to rant about it with my new friend (who completely independent of me also adores it) and was so incredibly excited to see you'll be posting the next fic soon! I've been checking your Tumblr almost every day to make sure I'm not missing new teasers, and have been delighting over thinking about different directions your fic could go based on what you've posted so far. I really really love your series, and I've enjoyed every fic more than the last, am I am just DYING to see how your animorphs and guardians mesh and work with the human military, and all the complications of moving into a more open war, and the virus development and the peace movement yeerks and everything--just thought I'd let you know how happy your fic makes people!

(Also while I completely understand your internal debate over the virus, completely seperate from the ethics of writing a fic about viruses, I gotta say I'm....really happy you're moving forward with your plan. The virus solution is kind of the sum of why I love your series--a brilliant piecing together of canon in an entirely unexpected way to create an unexpected, exciting, and complex new story. If you'd decided to hold off on posting or change directipns or something I would understand, but I would've missed the plotline.)

Thank you so much. It really does mean a lot. It is been a hard year for everyone for innumerable reasons, but it really did take an extra effort for me to write The Abyss this year, because of the way that writing about the virus intersected with the pandemic horror we’re living through, and also because I rather badly injured my arm in August and had to switch over to writing by dictation (it's gotten a lot better, but I still haven't fully recovered, so I am writing this very post by dictation.) The sheer dedication and love of the fans is a big thing that has let me keep going since 2011.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Not animorphs related, sorry, but--i've never really seen the civil war movie, but I've witnessed a lot of debate over it through fandom osmosis and I'd love to be able to mentally settle the matter. You're a reasonable person and you seem like you know what you're talking about and say there's a definitely right and wrong side in the movie--would you mind taking the time to give a quick explanation of this?

[Continuation of this post.]

Captain America: Civil War as a movie quite simply doesn’t have room to capture 99.99% of Marvel’s Civil War, so I understand that most of the nuance — the multiple sides, the emotional turmoil, the political commentary — needs to be cut.  However, I still think that there would be a way to convey the “no one is right” plot with a single MCU movie, but that CA:CW doesn’t quite succeed.

First and foremost, it’s right there in the name: this is a Captain America movie.  Cap gets over twice as much screen time as Iron Man, including most of the scenes of major emotional weight, and he “wins” the fight between their sides each time they physically fight.  It’s not an Avengers movie, and it’s under no obligation to give a balanced depiction of the Avengers as a result.

Second, there’s the fact that the actual conflict depends so much on miscommunications that it could blend in with the ranks of 1990s rom coms.  Cap knows that Bucky killed Iron Man’s parents, and he also knows that it (mostly) wasn’t Bucky’s fault.  Black Panther knows that the U.N. building bomber had Hydra connections.  SHIELD knows that Bucky is brainwashable.  NOBODY SHARES ANY OF THIS INFORMATION WITH ANYONE ELSE, and that’s the only thing driving the plot forward.  Once everyone knows everything, the conflict just… stops happening.

Third, every single member of Team Iron Man eventually professes agreement with Team Cap’s position.  Black Widow and Black Panther both change sides during the movie, as soon as they have more information (see the above point).  Iron Man, Vision, and Spider-Man all quietly drop their support for the Sokovia Accords between movies.  War Machine holds out the longest, but in the end declares that he’s willing to face court martial to support Team Cap.  CA:CW not only depicts it as a conflict with winners and losers — in clear contrast to Marvel’s Civil War — but it has all of the characters on one team decide to go over to the other, thereby suggesting that one team was wrong all along.

Fourth… This isn’t entirely the movie’s fault, but it just lacks the emotional complexity of the comics.  Marvel 616 Steve and Tony are best friends from ~1964 - 2008, with no major interruptions in that friendship (outside of mind control, because Marvel), by the time we witness them causing each other serious and irreparable harm in Civil War.  MCU Steve and Tony co-star in two prior movies, and spend most of their time onscreen together sniping at each other.  The MCU conflict just doesn’t have the same emotional weight, because there’s no found family at the core of the Avengers to dissolve and make it so excruciating that these people are hurting each other.

Fifth, there’s this problematic, somewhat ableist thing where War Machine’s permanent injury is treated as a metaphor rather than a part of his identity.  And that metaphor is, very specifically, that Rhodey is “damaged” as a result of his having chosen the wrong side and Tony having taken their fight too far.  It comes up in CA:CW, in Infinity War, and in Endgame.  I like the character, but I hate that motif.

Sixth, the Sokovia Accords seem like a strawman, especially compared to the Superhuman Registration Act.  The SRA is written in response to a specific instance of superhero excesses leading to civilian deaths, and it provides specific protection and training to all young would-be heroes.  The Sokovia Accords… it’s not clear what’s in them, really, because the closest we ever see to their enforcement is a bunch of guys at a table telling Tony “don’t go save Cap” after which he goes “fuck you”, and then later a bunch of guys at a table telling Rhodey “don’t go save the planet” after which he goes “fuck you.”  It’s not clear what Team Iron Man even supports, outside of a plan to add a bunch of red tape to a team that — canonically — is already beholden to the U.S. government.

Seventh, there’s the issue of secret identities.  In the MCU, the only Avenger with a definitive secret identity is Spider-Man.  Everyone else — Cap, Iron Man, Bucky, etc. — has a legal identity tied to a hero identity.  Even Black Widow’s past is widely known, after the events of Winter Soldier.  This means that there’s already a set of laws in place to govern these people’s actions, and it’s the set of laws that governs Steve Rogers and Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff.  Not only that, but most of the superheroes in the MCU Avengers are not superhumans; they’re assassins and mech-suit inventors rather than mutants or inhumans.  Therefore, in context the law feels less like “let’s do something about the thousands of teenagers who can blow up towns with their minds;” more like “let’s over-regulate the only team of superheroes in the world because they’re more powerful than us and we don’t like that.”

Anyway, like I said, there’s a lot to like about Captain America: Civil War.  I just don’t believe that it does nearly as well as the comics at presenting multiple conflicting sides of an issue in a way that makes it almost as easy to argue one position as another, for reasons that are not entirely the fault of the movie itself.

[pennylogue]

my head is in my hands. there. there it is in one side-by-side. everything wrong with the crystal gem’s relationship with rose and steven. they’re both horror stories of what happens when people try to live up to the pedestal they’re on. the gems just automatically turn to their leader, the glue that holds them together, because it’s so easy, because it’s what both sides have always wanted. 

like, rose wanted to be the person that pearl, that every crystal gem, thought she was. she wanted to be that wonderful, rebellious quartz, and the gap between what she was and how wonderful everyone thought she was caused her so much pain. but she still played such an important role in balancing the team. everyone relied on her, everyone turned to her.

and the gems have always wanted someone to fill that void, and steven has always been the person who wanted to do that for them. nobody asked steven to do this. that’s why it’s subtle. that’s why steven becoming the team leader was less about an official hand-off and more of a “wait, when did that happen?”

just...the subtleties of this, how easy it is to fall into an unhealthy relationship when it’s what everyone wants, and why it’s also a terrible idea. i could write about these parallels forever.

Steven Universe Second Episode: “If Rose were here, this would be so easy.” Steven Universe Penultimate Episode: If Steven were here, this would be so easy.

[infriga]

you're omustila? dude, the timing in your one piece amvs is permanently imprinted on my brain.

That’s one of the greatest compliments on my amvs I’ve ever gotten lmao, thank you!

[fanfoolishness]

Fic meme - first lines!

Tagged by @runrundoyourstuff. I'm a little nervous because I feel like my last lines are often emotional haymakers and my first lines are just... kinda... there... But we'll see! Apologies to my SU and Bioware friends, but this here's Mandalorian hours.

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories.  See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 authors!

1. for the darkness always passes

The loss seethes beneath his skin, writhing beneath the armor.

2. duty

Arvala-7′s a shithole, no doubt about it.

3. Fulminating

The air streams past him, tugging at the free edge of his cloak as he descends.

4. The Scent of Whiteleaf

The air smells clean and crisp and biting, underlaid with the scents of dry soil and bitter plants.

5. the good news

Nevarran lava dust clings to his boots, the blackened ash settling on the leather like an old embrace.

6. Primary Directives

It was a droid.

7. the wheeling stars, amidst the dark

Winter on Tatooine was Peli’s favorite season, a time when the fierce desert heat gave up a little of its cruelty.

8. Strikethrough

Once when he was a young man, sometime in another life, Din was badly wounded.

9. Somewhere Safe

The sounds of the village soon faded away behind them, and Din and the child found themselves alone with Stoke and Caben, driving them back the long way to the township where they had first met.

10. to stay a little while

Cara’s always felt it, energy humming beneath her skin, the crackle of power etched in bone and muscle.

11. The Confession

The Razor Crest was fast, but the galaxy was vaster.

12. Nightmares

Nightmares did not come as often as they used to, a fact for which Din was grateful.

13. The Outpost

Batuu was a strange world.

14. Contact

He knows fists and blocks, boots against feet and shins, blows and beatings done to him or by him.

15. Orphans

At least there was this, then, battle: the brutal and elegant dance of blows struck and bolts fired, the song of pumping blood and pounding heart.

16. The Sacrifice

The Armorer had been crueler than she knew.

17. talisman

She doesn’t ask him about it, at first.

18. five denials and a truth

The sun fell beneath the crowns of the trees, leaving them awash in blues and golds, and the insects sang their chorus in the growing shadows.

19. The Clan Now Safe

There was a funny thing that happened, the longer one got used to space travel.

20. The Weight

She wonders, not for the first time, what will become of her people.

Tagging @bethagain, @lastwordbeforetheend, @honestlyhufflepuff, @abel-quartz, @rederiswrites, @pennylogue, @art3mys and anyone else who wishes to play! If you don't have 20 fics, try your five most recent, or chapter openings, ,or however many you have!

Also, musings: seems like there's a decent mix between poetic environmental description (y'all know me, I love my light and colors and plants!), blunt straightforward openers, and unremarkable exposition. But if there's a last line meme, I feel like I'd crush it XD

[smallpwbbles]

So @pennylogue make this wondrous post talking about an alternate to everything fine and one of my favourite things was Steven taking his classic form because that’s the one he associates himself as being perfect and it just h u r t s to think of that as alternative plot to everything’s fine (also I kinda thought it would be like that for the ep based on that promo with Steven looking kinda classic with the together breakfast)

[tenspontaneite]

In an extremely rare but welcome occurrence, last night I was visited by the urge to experience Severe Angst through the lens of writing, so I sat down with the ch20 document and smashed my way through what would have been about two to six weeks of writer's block in one sitting, whilst live blogging the whole thing to my discord.

Some extracts:

Shout out to @pennylogue and @mynewgroove for presiding during this occasion and slaking my ceaseless hunger for reactions and input

[doodlingfoolishness]

searching

Steven honey let people help you

(a companion to my story searching. fun until it isn’t! thanks again to @pennylogue​ for the inspiration!)

[suworkbook]

I would like Connie bond with the Gems and develop her own relationships to them beyond being Steven’s moms. I’d like her to be a full blown team member who has skills and contributions she can make in her own right. And I’d love to meet her family. Gems + normal people is a great time. 

One episode a week, whether you guys want it or not. Usually somewhere between Friday - Tuesday. 

I hope you’re ashamed of yourself, anon. Bringing your well thought out puns to my doorstep.

Is a spoiler a spoiler if one knows the spoiler?

@ghastlygerald I didn’t realise there was three orders. I’m doing the ‘one that isn’t the netflix order’ order. 

Raven and Paul have burned me before. I can’t go in unprepared.

At the moment, we’ll do an episode whenever it’s voted on or commissioned by the Patrons. It definitely goes on the list on to-be-liveblogged-one-day, but the list is long and there’s a few other things to get through first.

@pennylogue​ That’s incredibly sweet of you, thanks so much for reading! I’ve been made aware that every liveblogger has one incredibly offbase and weird theory that lives in infamy, and I dread finding out what mine is going to be. 

[consistantly-changing]

List 5 OTPs from 5 fandoms, then tag 10 people to pass it on.

On mobile so let’s see how bad this looks:

Thanks to @meggiry-khaleesi for tagging me!

Blue/Yellow diamond (Steven Universe)

Harley/Ivy (DC comics/extended universe)

Entrapta/Hordak (She-ra Princesses of Power)

Raoul/Christine (Phantom of the Opera)

Brotherhood ot3!! (Rapunzel’s tangled adventures)

Tag 10 (that’s a lot of people, do I even know that many people?): @faelapis, @ankle-beez, @pnumbra-rbs, @rohad93, @aureole, @izzyaro, @desnaa, @marzipanandminutiae, @riddleredcoats, @pennylogue

[pennylogue]

the only thing that could have made everything’s fine even worse

i can’t stop thinking about steven shapeshifting into classic steven during everything’s fine. god, how painful would that have been? 

picture diamond steven shapeshifting into his younger form at some point in little homeworld, as he ruins thing after thing, in a frantic attempt to make himself feel like a person who can help people again. picture the opposite of his birthday, him distorting his body into something small and soft, squeezing it into a mold that it doesn’t fit because he’s scared of the alternative.

or after, he destroys the baseball field, he’s doing construction work, but he can feel everybody watching him, wondering what he’s going to break next. he doesn’t want to be big and scary. he doesn’t want to have done this. so he shapeshifts to classic. that’s what they want, right? that’s certainly what he wants.

or after that, even during the intervention. it’s way too on the nose, but just imagine big steven trying to insist he’s okay, he has this under control. he’s never been a burden and he’s not going to start being one now--he’s still the same steven they’ve always known! so of course he shifts into his younger self to underline that. 

he’d still be in diamond mode for all of this, obvs. can’t escape that.

alternatively, forget little homeworld entirely. what if the episode had just been steven as his younger self, trying to recreate moments from early su, akin to that stepford smiler promo? i would love a story about steven interacting with the crystal gems in this state--them puzzling out what’s going on, while steven tries to avoid a mental breakdown by pretending really hard that the last four years never happened.

“you gotta go teach? c’mon, how long has it been since we had a together breakfast? amethyst, i thought your whole class was about doing whatever you want?”

“you guys were just talking about how you wanted me home! what happened with jasper? oh, it’s nothing. c’mon, let’s go on a good ol’ fashioned mission! track down some corrupted gems!”

look what i’m getting at is that the final breakdown coming from a steven who looks like (or god forbid sounds like) his younger self is something i can’t stop thinking about. steven’s transformation over the time skip is always going to make it a little difficult to mentally connect the smol boy and his older self, and getting that monologue about thinking about smashing white, or shattering jasper, and everything else he said, from the original steven’s body would be a visceral and horrifying way to hammer in that all of this is steven, and always has been.

i’m gonna try to fic this, but it obviously would work better visually--so if any artist out there wants to take a shot at this concept? you would have my undying gratitude.

[dimonds456]

@pennylogue I’m working on a thing rn and I blame you for it.

Have a preview.

I also blame Novantium but to a lesser degree lmao

[dogcopter]

pennylogue tumblr com post 613629248337510400 i-have-been-hit-by-a-horrible-epiphany-about

That would be spicy and fun! Steven universe fear

I’ve wondered if what happened after being stomped on by Yellow in Reunited wasn’t Steven’s equivalent of proofing tbh. Like she smashed him into the astral plane there for a second.

[fanfoolishness]

😢 @pennylogue @pencilsmudges Annie Sewell-Jennings over on LiveJournal... 😞