#they're a wacky only works in fandom ship

[spoiledqueenie]

TimLonnie but miraculous ladybug style and worse bc

Lonnie hates trust fund baby Tim Drake but falls face-first into the dirt for Boy Wonder, Robin.

Tim's bi-awakening his ex-girlfriend's one-month fling, and he doesn't know how to deal, but this Anarky guy is the most annoying piece of shite he'd ever met.

Stephanie is their Luka. She wants to bash their head together until they bleed to death

[eisforeidolon]

//In short, they want attention, but don't have the relevance or want to do the work to earn it. But hey, what gets you more quick, cheap attention than pandering? Especially to a group who loudly make it clear over and over they're desperate enough to pay to hear their ship is totes for real a thing and will go on for days on end about your podcast if you cater to them? //

It’s so true and I hate it. I get that it must suck to live in J2’s shadow and have most fans just ask you questions about them all the time, but tough titties. Be grateful you get to work cons and milk the show this far past the shows end, and decades past any good relevance for your characters. Take Gabriel out (after the trickster episodes) and essentially nothing changes on SPN. Take Chuck out, and we are spared the dumpster fire that is Season 15. Honestly, pandering to the hateful, death threat hurling side of fandom so they’ll stroke them for 5 minutes is just sad. They don't actually give a shit about "R2" anymore than brothers fans do, unless they are blowing smoke up heller butts.

I actually do tune into the podcast on occasion, but if it’s going to turn into destiel hour, I’m out permanently. I already find these guys obnoxious in their lack of understanding, or caring, about the brothers and actual themes of the show. They are also so full of shit. They dump on an episode and then turn around and suck up to person they are interviewing. The Back-pedaling is pathetic.

And, hey hellers! Two idiots who know less about the show than a casual viewer who only caught every other episode in reruns are not an authority on jack shit. They don’t speak for the show runners, they don't speak for Jared or Jensen who know their characters better than anyone, and they sure as shit aren’t rewriting the canon of a show that is already over by pandering to your wacky asses.

After this year, J2 should just do cons together that aren’t CE and see how long the pandering loser extras still get work or sell anything at non-CE cons. If he hasn't yet, JA should break his US CE exclusivity like Jared seems to have done, and do other cons.

It’s funny how the recurring actors we generally see at cons outside of CE, like comic cons or fan expos, are either actually talented and made names for themselves beyond SPN, or at least don’t grovel for hellers.

Rob, Rich, Misha, Briana and Kim can enjoy that sinking CE as the company continue to guage fans until they bring about their own extension. Maybe the five of them can start a YouTube channel or additional podcast where all they do is pander to dummies all day long.

Yes.

The thing is, acting as a profession often kinda sucks. Talent or no, it's very much about who you know and being in the right place at the right time. There's very rarely any long-term security. So you kind of have to be always on the make - that's fairly understandable.

What's less understandable is how J2 always make it so clear they understand how lucky they have been and are grateful they got to do SPN so long and have had the other opportunities they've had - while doing the work. Meanwhile, SPN has this whole slew of minor supporting players, who instead of being grateful that SPN was on long enough to bring them back multiple times and appreciating the opportunities like regular convention income going on five years after the show ended? Or a whole fandom of people who might be willing to check out their projects? Seem to have let the attention of a loud fandom go to their heads and feel entitled to more without doing any more to earn it.

They somehow either don't seem to understand (or just actively resent) that the fans who will make the time to see them at a con said fans are already at for J2 who carried the show for fifteen years? Are generally not actually going to care enough about guys who were in a handful of episodes to show up just for them if they don't bring something more to the table.

So they come up with ideas like this podcast and think fans should be lining up to listen to them bullshit about a show they were objectively barely on and don't actually have substantial ongoing bts knowledge of. That they can't even bother to really invest in, despite that being the basis of the fans' interest! When the GA and rest of fandom were rightfully largely unimpressed, there were the hellers clamoring to keep paying to be told their ship was totes really real. When R2 don't care about the show for itself and have no real stake beyond the money they can make off of its fandom? Well, here we are.

Despite hellers crowing about it and desperately trying to label the podcast as official? It doesn't change the canon or make R2 any more authoritative about SPN than the minor character actors turned barely employed grifters transparently looking for a free ride they seem increasingly willing to be.

[wrengrif]

Alright, last Random Thoughts for today

Be mad at Aziraphale! Look at the horrible things that he said! Look at him leaving Crowley after Crowley poured out his heart! He went off to toxic Heaven on an impossible mission!

Be mad at Crowley! Look at the horrible things HE said! Look how he doesn't ever take responsibility for his actions! He walked out when Aziraphale needed him the most!

You know what? You can be angry at both of them. You can blame both of them for not taking the time to actually see the problems right in front of their faces. You can be mad that Aziraphale never asked Crowley to move in with him directly, for not seeing how on edge and depressed Crowley was, how he never seemed to relax, always waiting for another shoe to fall. You can be mad at Crowley for not realizing just how seriously manic Aziraphale was, how the angel was going around without an rudder, using Crowley as a proxy!Heaven to report to.

They both made mistakes. They both have something to learn in their separation. They both have to come back to this friendship, this relationship, having made progress in their own self-realizations.

I think that's what Neil, and the script, have been leading to all along. They're stronger together, but only if they are working together. Equal partnership, fifty-fifty. Balancing out each other's weaknesses, supporting each other's strengths.

We, as a fandom, should not be, in my personal opinion, Pro-Crowley or Pro-Aziraphale. We should be Pro-Ineffable Husbands. We accept they are both fucked up, that we love them anyways, and we're going with them on their wacky journey of personal growth, and eventually, their triumphant reconciliation. That's why we got on this crazy ship to begin with.

So. To them. To Us. To their world.

[storyspinner91]

Twenty Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @littleblackraincloudofcourse

Tagging @lowkeyed1 @evodevo-geekmonkey @dianels @bisexualshakespeare @spybrarian @blackdalek

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 

7 (3 are WiP)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 

186,452

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Willow! ...Technically other things too but really it's just Willow with playful skins.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Red Embers: dark alternate future AU, resistance fighters against the Wyrm's tyranny, grim & gritty

Like Constellations, a Million Years Away: sprawling mecha sci-fi AU set in the world of the Lancer tabletop roleplaying game. The Questies all pilot giant mechs; four books (2 done), one focused on each of Jade, Kit, Graydon, and Elora (in that order). Posthumanism, anticolonial to the extent a fanfic can be, utopian, dramatic.

Soft Blazing Crowns: Tanthamoretober one-shot. Modern AU. Elora helps Jade with a sexy photoshoot for a gift for Kit.

Full: (E-rated) Tanthamoretober one-shot. Modern AU. Straight-up smut drabble, 100 words on the dot. Extremely funny to me that this is in the top 5. :P

The Loving Hurt: Canon-set one-shot digging into the violence implied by the canon against the Bone Reavers, Scorpia's backstory, how Jade got her name. Dark, grim, not pleasant to write and in some ways probably not to read TBH. I was in A Mood!

5. Do you respond to comments?

Religiously! Sometimes it takes me a while, but I do.

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

Hmmm. I mean I think it's gotta be The Loving Hurt. Like I said. Dark. Blame the show's writers, I do. :P

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

Gonna resist the temptation to say Full and instead say I think that it'll probably be Flawless Five vol. 1 when it's finished in a few weeks!

8. Do you get hate on fics? 

Not so far!

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

The only thing I'd consider smut is Full. Otherwise, not anywhere that you can see. ;)

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

No true crossovers, though Like Constellations is set (loosely) in the Lancer Universe.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so! They're too weird!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

No but I'd be so honored.

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

Nope!

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

I am a Tanthamore diehard, what can I say.

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

If you'd asked me recently I'd probably have said "all of them." Fortunately I'm feeling a little better lately! I hope to finish all of the current ones; Constellations is a slow, weighty project, F5 I hope to have done very shortly, Embers...we'll figure that out after F5.

16. What are your writing strengths? 

I think I'm pretty good at dialogue, and I'm decent though not incredible at humor (especially character-based humor). I'm also a decent mimic - though this can feel a little clunky sometimes, I think I'm able to adjust my voice pretty easily to suit a situation, genre, or style. My unhinged and unpopular fic Excerpts from a new translation... is a pretty good example of that, lol. And on that note: I have a lot of fun with wacky metatextual stuff.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Taking the wacky meta stuff too far; not being bold enough in straying from the established character arcs/plots in canon; I don't think I'm great at writing really juicy interiority. Starting very large projects that will take forever to finish. ':)

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

I'm comfortable enough in Spanish to write simple dialogue in that language. I've done one line in Latin (which I'm comfortable with since it's functionally a dead language) and made up some words in a conlang for Constellations. Wouldn't try anything via Google Translate though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Willow! At least if we count conscious fanfiction. If we're going back to the Days of Yore probably Animorphs when I was a wee one.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? 

Difficult to pick...but Like Constellations is the baby, the one I'll finish come hell or high water (I hope). On the other hand, Flawless Five is probably the most fun (to write, and maybe to read if you like that sort of thing) and Red Embers is the one that in many ways I find most exciting. Like I said - hard to choose!

[tr1ck5]

It's so funny how some people think that Quistis should've been Squall's love interest instead of Rinoa either because they think Quistis is prettier and/or because she's known Squall longer. Yet they conveniently ignore the facts, from the game itself, that:

1) Squall literally never liked Quistis in any way whatsoever, not when they were kids in the orphanage and not at Garden. He literally said that when they were kids, Quistis was "difficult to deal with." She annoyed him as a kid. Even after they forgot their childhood, he still didn't like her during all those years at Garden.

2) Then he himself pointed out how inappropriate she was being towards him because she's his teacher. It doesn't matter that she's only a year older than him; she was still in a position of power and authority over him for at least a year. If he actually reciprocated her feelings, their relationship would've been extremely inappropriate and she could've gotten in trouble for it.

Also, these same people like to claim that Rinoa forced him to become her Knight, or really forced him to do whatever she wanted him to do, when he literally made that decision of his own free will. He chose to be Rinoa's Knight because he wanted to. He chose to take Rinoa to Esthar and free her from her coma because he wanted to. He chose to rescue Rinoa from space because he wanted to. No one forced him to do any of that shit.

I swear, these certain people make me scratch my head and wonder if they even played FF8 at all 🤦‍♀️ @angelosearch @doortotomorrow @ethernalium

Listen dear anon, while I totally agree with you on all of this; I've learned a long time ago that people will ship who they wanna ship regardless of canon so I just let them do their thing (and that's part of the beauty of fandom!!) and honestly I've actually read some interesting Squall/Quistis fics in the past that made it work! While it's not my preferred ship *by far*, there's always room for imagination.

That being said, one of the big reason that I personally think Squall/Quistis doesn't really work is that they are simply *too alike*. Both of them have this independent, serious, lone wolf type personality, not to mention we can assume both of them were pretty much prodigies (Squall being looked up to despite everything and being top of his classes + Quistis becoming instructor at friggin' *eighteen*).

Squall thinking Quistis was "annoying" and "difficult to deal with" actually tells us a lot about how Squall also views himself, consciously or not, I think. Tl;dr: Squall doesn't like himself very much -> he and Quistis are pretty alike personality-wise -> ergo: Squall doesn't like Quistis very much. At least that's my reasoning! Now, I do think their relationship gets less tense as the game progresses (though I don't buy her whole 'oh I thought it was love but it was really sisterly love'. Girl was still crushing on Squall, but decided to put a stop to this awkward situation between them in her own way so they could both move on... Maturity!~)

And yes, her pursuing him rather aggressively while being his direct superior is of course one hundred percent inappropriate, but we have to remind ourselves that... She's a teenager. They're all teenagers. Despite the training and the weapons and powerful guardian forces they're still all a bunch of kids on the cusp of becoming adults, with the maturity and wacky hormones that go with it. Of course they're gonna make mistakes.

Look at me going off again oop lol

The whole "Rinoa forced him to become her knight" angle is new (and quite baffling) to me, I must admit. The iconic line ("Even if you become the world's enemy, I'll be your knight") wasn't even said out loud, the idiot said it in his head lmao. But again, fandom gonna fandom, whatcha gonna do!

[shatteredhourglass]

Fic Writer's Showcase Game

tagged by @drgrlfriend - thank you!

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason. <3

First Fic:

Left Foot Forward (Marvel, Winterhawk, Omegaverse, E) - This was born of me reading first Bucky fics, then Clint fics, then running out of winterhawk fics and going 'I should write some so that other people make more for me to read. Maybe I'll do all the popular tropes.' I was terribly depressed at the time and spent most of my days watching the food network and doing nothing, so this actually saved me in a lot of ways.

Last Fic:

A Losing Game (OFMD, Rotating Ed/Stede/Izzy But NOT Steddyhands, Death Game/Modern AU, E) - I know a lot of people are scared of reading this one because they don't know the series it's inspired by and no matter how much I promise that it doesn't matter, it's still intimidating. But I think it's the bees knees. I need to finish the companion parts, they're some of the best things I've ever written.

One-Hit Fandom:

Bad Habits / Indisposed (Dying Light 2, Aiden/Barney, PWP, Both E) - Technically a two-hit fandom and I'm always tempted to write more, but this is a hilarious instance of a character in a video game being so annoying that I was like. I need that guy OBLITERATED (sexual.)

Favourite Fic In Biggest Ship:

BANG! (Marvel, Winterhawk, Suicide Squad AU, E) - I loved writing this fic. I'm in my element when writing violent, kind of wacky comedy action romances (see ALG above as well) and BANG! was a lot of my favourite things in one. Also a call back to a few villains I loved who aren't as prominent.

Fic I Wish Was Read More:

See above for A Losing Game. I was well aware that it wouldn't have a massive reception; it's inspired by a series that people probably haven't seen, it's 80k, it's not actually Steddyhands. But it's very good. I stand by it.

Fic Most Agonised Over:

under the heel of a devil (Marvel, Ameriwinterhawk, Western AU, E) - Westerns are NOT my thing. Arson set me this challenge and I was like "welp." And went to watch a few westerns so I had some semblance of an idea of what the hell I was meant to do. I think it came out alright in the end, but it drove me nuts.

Zero-Effort Fic:

An Endless Beating Heart (OFMD, Ed/Izzy & Jack/Stede, Zombie AU, E) - Okay this is technically a snippet collection in the same verse and is Very Disjointed, but I love it. It was so easy. Zombie stuff is so cruisy for me.

Pride And Joy Fic:

Off The Mortal Coil (Marvel, Winterhawk & Platonic Bucky/Kate, Zombie AU, E) - Over 160k words. 160k. I have not and will never achieve a fic this long again. It was a labour of love and I still love it dearly.

Tagging: If you haven't done this yet, do it now. You're tagged. Go. And tag me in the post.

[beautifully-lumpy]

introducing my new AU...bricks and border!

back in april, jetpackbraggin's thumbnail image for caddicarus' resident evil 4 remake stream series sparked something in me - i started developing an idea for a cartoon series about the personas of online reviewers living in a large city. this idea eventually evolved into bricks and border!

bricks and border follows the escapades of the nintendo-obsessed scott (the woz) - an ambitious guy from the midwest who just so happens to be the younger cousin of the hot-headed mayor, and "laz" (caddicarus) - a brit with a mysterious past who is only known by his nickname. together they solve mysteries and get into other shenanigans in their city of oaksport. nothing is off limits!

this is basically a love letter to the entire comedic review genre on youtube. i'm super excited to start working on this!!

more info about the world and its wacky cast of characters will be revealed soon, but first we need to get into some format/release/disclaimer talk...(some of it's pretty important!)

this project will be written in prose format. i'm still deciding whether it will be in first person with the chapters alternating between scott's and laz's viewpoints, or just in third person. i know first person is looked down upon in fanfic, but that's just what my mind immediately goes to because they're youtubers who review things, and it's easy to imagine them narrating their points of view. i'm still deciding that though.

i will draw a lot for it as it's meant to be imagined as a cartoon series - and just like my previous major fandom project (onward the fanmade series), i will be drawing stills to accompany each chapter/episode! and i will gladly negotiate with any lumpy germ or wozzer who would like to contribute a guest still! and yes - you absolutely CAN create fanart/edits/etc. based on this AU! i would love to see them!

the big differences between this and OTFS are that B&B will not be contained in one book/AO3 work. OTFS episodes were written in script format, and episodes were released as one whole chapter. however, for B&B, "episodes" will be separate stories that could range from 3 chapters to 15.

as to when the first story will come out? i can say maybe soon, but i can't say the exact date and time. i'm gonna be a bit easier on myself with this one - as in, i won't be busting my ass to get a chapter out every single week. not only will i not be able to accomplish that with both my summer job consistently exhausting me and my senior year of college on the horizon, but i also don't want to burn myself out and not want to produce anymore content for the project. that's how the original caddicarus show died.

also, just a little disclaimer - this is not RPF. these are heavily fictionalized versions of the youtubers' already exaggerated personas - i mean for god's sake, B&B!scott is the younger cousin of B&B!AVGN, who is the mayor of the fictional city oaksport. lore from scott's and caddy's shows is referenced, and private people in their lives are absolutely not included in this (for example, cerys and the kids will not be mentioned). however, caddy's sister may be included, as she's a public figure.

with all that being said, i'm doing this as responsibly and cautiously as i possibly can - trust me, i previously wrote realistic non-AU caddicarus RPF and i almost got in trouble for it in 2017 when i was a stupid 15 year old who didn't know better. i know the harm RPF can do, which is why this is strictly being labeled as an AU. also i'm just gonna go ahead and say i won't be shipping characters in this. even though they're fictionalized AU versions of the youtubers, i feel uncomfortable shipping them. if you would like to create your own fan content of this AU where you ship the characters, i can't stop you. but i'm not gonna make it canon or anything.

that's pretty much all i have to say, i think. i hope that the caddicarus and scott the woz fans of tumblr will take interest in this!

[22degreehalo]

So I'm back to watching Assassination Classroom but I had to put out some laundry earlier so I looked up to see if there were any Karma/Nagisa podcasts (there are two!) and I got to thinking about what a surreal setting that fandom is and how much I love that and that got me thinking about a thread on /r/Ao3 about writing fic where the characters have weird names and how I was bummed I only got to thread when it was many hours old (as usual) so I didn't bother to leave a comment but I just felt so strongly about calling the characters 'Black' and 'White' or, like, 'America' and 'Lithuania', because some writers like to use their 'human' names but it's so much more meaningful and interesting IMO when it really is The United States of America and The Republic of Lithuania locking tongues, and then I imagined a person from Lithuania being really startled to see their country referenced out of the blue 'cause maybe they're young or old but either way they're not really familiar with Hetalia, so then I had to mentally write out a whole long comment about how Lithuania is depicted in that fandom (to my memory; it's been a while) and why I ship America/Lithuania, and I'd have to share some fic because there are some REALLY good ones, and there are the Lithuania genfics ofc and the one puella_nerdii and mithrigil wrote, but then there was another that I reread a few years ago when my phone screen broke so I had to use my first smartphone for a couple of days and I found it saved tot he device (never transferred on) and was surprised to find it even better than I'd remembered, so then I had to try and look it up and by now I'm about to have a shower because it's hot today and I know the fic's on my tablet but I only have my phone with me and I'm just standing there naked in the bathroom for ten minutes scowling down as I repeatedly google "How does your garden grow?" and various combinations of 'livejournal' 'lithuania' 'fanfiction' 'usliet' 'rec list' and eventually I got to my tablet and found it but I guess I didn't include the author's name when I copied it to a word document??? So now I had to go look up my del.icio.us recs because thank god I'd sorted that all out earlier this year and even refound this exact fic (but didn't bookmark it to ao3 for some reason), and after all that I had to give it a re-read, didn't I? Since it took so long to track down and, like, I didn't want to accidentally rec a super offensive fic to this made-up Lithuanian redditor. 'cause when I thought about it, the idea of America being this really nice guy who makes Lithuania really happy probably wouldn't fly so well in 2024, huh?

but I did read it and

it's so....... fucking good ;_________;

I want to go to Lithuania... I lolvve that fucking country so stupidly much oh my god. so fucking cringe that Im getting this worked up over a dumb gay anime fanfiction about wacky ww2 yaoi fascists but here I am and it's' actually still probably one of my favourite fics ever tbh. unironically.

so uhhHHHHHHHH that's how my afternoon went and also please read 'How Does Your Garden Grow?' by zempasuchil 🙏🙏🙏