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warrior-u-preservation · 1 year

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Interview with The Path Podcast (Full written responses)

(Note: The interview itself will be different, since mod myne represented both mods on the podcast. However, this includes our full feelings on the questions that were provided to us.)

Who are you and how did you end up walking the path of a "warrior u" writer/comic creator?

Myne: I go by worldismyne for fandom related pursuits.

I'd like to clarify that Aisha Thani is the creator of Warrior U. Just like multiple people have written for Stan Lee's creations, I'm just a writer who's received permission from the creator to distribute and monetize works within her universe.

I've been in the WU fandom since 2014; at that time Aisha made the comic, ran an in character ask blog, a concept art blog and the main blog. I can only imagine how much work that was. A hard drive crash killed about 6 or so pages of Ambrosia, the last story arch she was working on; three weeks worth of updates up and gone. I watched writer’s block take hold and kill my favorite series in real time. Having to go back and redo work she’d already done had given her time to look at it and go ‘I can’t post this, this is awful’, but by then all of us were waiting for the next update for over a month, she couldn’t go back and rewrite the entire arch. It didn’t help that this was the origin story for a fan favorite character, so there was all this pressure to make it perfect. Instead, after about six artists made fan comics to feed the hungry fandom… she announced the end. The website, the blogs, one by one they all ran into issues and got shut down. Hundreds of pieces of art and story concepts just… lost. Once the comics were rereleased on gumroad, that was it, the fandom slowly died. Before this project, the last time the creator posted new content was in 2017. Then in the middle of the pandemic, out of nowhere I get 70+ notifications from Coffee reblogging the pieces of art I had saved from the old blog, including drafts from the unfinished issues.

Coffee: well, i go by coffee online, im 20 years old and when im not working on my various personal projects i work part-time. i was introduced to warrior u WAYY back in the day (i think i was like 9-ish?) by my brother who found out about it through some unknown and mysterious ways. back then i had very limited internet access (meaning i could only visit sites that could be loaded by the internet app on my nintendo dsi), so i pieced together a bit of a plot from what i could find on google images. i wasnt able to fully read the comic until i was 13 (i had to BEG my mom to pay for the pdfs lol), but it had kinda always existed in the back of my mind ever since i was introduced to it. i decided a little over a year ago to start out the tumblr blog because i had recently read through the comic again and was really sad about just how hard it is (or i guess WAS now) to find a lot of things related to the comic. as the name of the blog suggests, its original purpose was to preserve/archive warrior u stuff so it could be more accessable to your average internet user who might not wanna go digging through internet archives. it was originally for official content EXCLUSIVELY, but myne talked me into also including fan-made content (and im glad he did, its WAY harder to find some fan content than i remember it being just a few years ago). its kinda hard to tell how good of a job it does at BEING that archive, but i like to think it could be useful to someone out there.

i had toyed with the idea of finishing the last official story arc- ambrosia- near the beginning of the blogs lifespan, but i knew that it was too big of a project for me to do myself. i didnt wanna dissapoint people by leaving the ALREADY unfinished arc STILL unfinished. i had written in the "about" section of the blog that the dream was a full fandom revival, but i didnt actually expect that to happen. when myne joined the blog we eventually started playing with the idea of finishing ambro. i forget how exactly we officially decided we would do it, but we did! at some point near the beginning of ambro, we had also decided we were gonna write our own fan-arcs and post those too, and the rest is history!

What was it about warrior u that made you say "this is it. i need to make more content of this."

Coffee: honestly? i think it was just how much i enjoy introducing people to the comic. i already make tons of fan content on my own time, so that wasnt really the crazy part. i had shown a couple of my mutuals the comic after i re-read it, and the feeling of seeing other people actually talk about and even make ART of warrior u was absolutely surreal. i guess thats what happens when you just silently admire a dead fandom for years LMAO! another big part of it was HOW the comic ended. after taking a hiatus, the creator ended the comic mid-arc because creating it just wasnt enjoyable anymore, and thats obviously completely fair. however, the arc it ENDED on was elaborating on the backstory of one of (if not THE) most popular characters at the time (and my personal favorite), so i had always wished that the issue could have been finished. its kinda hard to put into words, but finishing ambrosia was like a love letter to the comic and its creator to me. as flawed as the plot of that arc may be (and as unsatisfied with it as the creator was, at least back then) i still felt like it deserved to be finished. it was like fixing an old toy from your childhood, i felt like we were taking care of the comic in a way, giving it the love it deserves. maybe thats just my tendency to personify objects and get overly attached to them coming through, but hey thats how it is sometimes LMAO

Myne: When the comic was still on hiatus after the harddrive crash, some people had asked Aisha if she wanted to hand the series over to other artists to help her. She said she wouldn’t even know where to begin that process or if she’d wanted to do it. I would have offered then, but my skills as an artist and a writer weren’t nearly as strong. I held onto the drafts thinking, one day I’d do it.

Myne: After Coffee and I started talking I realized, I can do it now. I know what kind of style of pens were used, and I whipped up a page, just the line art and sent to Coffee as a thank you. I thought, it isn’t much, and it’ll take me forever to color everything, but if there’s one person willing to read it, I’ll try. When I explained how difficult it’d be for me to color, he offered to do it for me. Suddenly a page that would take a month for just me to do on my own took 3 days.

Myne: Something, that seemed like a monumental task became a realistic goal. We were able to find, restore, and edit 45 pages within a few months. I’m still amazed we were able to do weekly updates without missing a day. Coffee asked if I’d ever be willing to write fan issues while we were working, not realizing I was the author of the longest fics in the series. Of course I said yes. Seeing Warrior U get finished, even through fan creation, was something I’d wanted to see for years.

You're from Az right, how is the webcomic weeb culture over there as opposed to california?

Myne: Idk about much about Cali, I've noticed the cons are more... professional? Where as Arizona cons have more of a fanclub vibe. Most panels are hosted by your fellow nerds rather than sony or production companies. I will say, that it's become more common and widespread in the last ten years, with multiple anime specific events year round. Back when I was a kid, I'd get made fun of for drawing 'japanese' people all the time.... it was pokemon fanart... Where as nowadays, I feel the average kid recognizes most big name titles thanks to hulu and such.

What are your favorite anime/manga/webcomics and do any inspire your work?

Coffee: not really an anime, manga, or webcomic, but ive always been super inspired by the "scott pilgrim" series. when i was in middle school i was SUPER into it, reading all the behind the scenes stuff i could find. it even made me look into "comic illustrator" as a career option, but i also did the same thing with "game designer" and "animator" so yknow. as for webcomics, the only one i ever really got into was homestuck. side note- the overlap of oldschool homestuck fans and warrior u fans is FASCINATING to me. my current theory is that all these tumblr kids were looking for other webcomics to read while homestuck was on one of its MANY hiatuses(?) and so a bunch of them flocked to warrior u! theres tons of homestuck crossover content and references in fan art on our blog (some of the art styles also look homestuck-ajacent) so its at least clear that a lot of fans back then were also really into homestuck. ANYWAYS other than that i havent really read many other webcomics tbh? weird considering i MAKE one now but what can i say, im more of a Gamer than anything lol. as for anime, my favorite is easily keroro gunso (or sgt. frog if youre using the dub name)! its another thing i discovered when i was young (this time i was like 8) and have just never gotten over. theres a lot of Questionable stuff in it (prime example is an adult alien being madly in love with a 14 year old girl) but if i dont look at canon its not real so i love it anyways <3.i honestly dont know how many people really know about it since the western fanbase is so small, but its like HUGE in japan (or at least it was at one point, the titular keroro has a cameo in lucky star as a keychian) and the manga is still running to this day iirc. it was created by mine yoshizaki and the basic premise is that a platoon of frog-like aliens come to earth to take it over but they really suck at it. they begin living with humans and from there its kind of a mix between a slice-of-life and monster-of-the-week anime. i cant really say anything in depth about the manga because ive only read the first 5 issues of it, which are basically the same as the anime (fake fan smh), but ive heard that it gets more mature and serious than the anime does (which i guess is bound to happen when it goes on for so long). also the manga has some ecchi moments and blood used for slapstick purposes so if anyone wants to check it out just keep that in mind lol.

Myne: Obviously Warrior U. I'm a bit of a visual novel fiend, so Danganronpa is a series I've found a lot of inspiration from over the years. More recently Though for the comic, I draw mostly from late 80s / early 90s high fantasy. Things like Labyrinth and Robinhood: Men in Tights. Honestly anytime I get stuck trying to come up with a gag, I look to Mel Brooks.

So in continuing someone else's work, do you feel a sense of pressure to be just as good as the original?

Coffee: i definitely felt that way when it came to ambrosia, but i feel a lot less pressure when it comes to our upcoming issues. i wrote and made thumbnails for a few small scenes in ambro and i was SO SCARED of those scenes being noticably worse than the rest of the issue. i know the original creator has seen our version of ambro and those scenes by extention, but i dont know her exact thoughts on them. im satisfied with them but theres probably always gonna be that kinda star-struck stage feeling at the thought of the creator reading the scenes i wrote. its like getting stage fright. for our upcoming issues i dont feel as much pressure because theyre fully fan-written. our comics arent official in any sense of the word and theyre basically just fanfiction with extra steps, so its not nearly as stressful as trying to tie together an "official" story. there definitely WOULD be that pressure if we were ever given the rights to warrior u or something (which i dont want to happen) because then it WOULD be official yknow? also if the creator decides to keep up with what we post ill feel a bit more pressure, but i get the feeling that she wants to distance herself from warrior u a bit so im not sure how likely that would be.

Myne: I do. Partially because, the fan content we’re making is completely free while the original series is purchasable on gumroad. So there’s a chance that some people may start with what we’re working on, then go backwards to the original. I'm hyper aware of the tonal shift that's about to happen, no matter how much I try, I can't perfectly emulate someone else's writing style. The best I can do is capture the spirit of it. I just keep repeating "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be". It's a little harder taking that advice now that it's my scripts we're turning into issues. There is some freedom in knowing the series was never meant to be perfect though.

What drove you to writing the longest fanfiction for the series and how did it feel to be recognized and promoted by the original creator?

Myne: When I was younger, I would write fanfic instead of paying attention in class, and I really wanted a full story about the leads getting together. Knowing that the creator was reading every fanfic at the time added more fuel to the fire. I had a guaranteed audience, the audience. I was so grateful that she recommended it to other fans. That fic was 25k, I've written about 100 K in the last year to help maintain interest in addition to new pages to the comic. To that I blame hyperfixation and hiatus brain. You have to be the biggest fan of the thing you're making.

So i see the that most of your work including the webcomic Warrior U is on tumblr why did u choose to promote om tumblr as opposed to other webcomic outlets like webtoons, mangadex etc?

Coffee: the answer to this one is actually pretty simple; i already had a warrior u blog and tumblr is the social media/blogging site that im most familiar with! we have recently started using comicfury and tapas, but that was entirely mynes idea. im personally pretty content with just hanging out in my little corner of the internet so any attempts to expand or get the word out is mostly (if not entirely) mynes doing LOL!

Myne: It's interesting you bring up those two actually. Webtoons recently come under fire for being pretty crummy to it's indie comics, particularly if you write in any genre other than romance. Mangadex is a pirating website, so most of the comics there are fan translations rather than uploads from the creators : they had a pretty bad data breach a few years back too. At first we only had permission from the creator to upload on tumblr. Once we got permission to move forward with the fanmade run, we branched out to tapas and comicfury. They seemed like the best options for the genre and style we write in. Even still, we see about double the growth in readership on tumblr as opposed to the other outlets, and I think that's mostly because the blog updates daily, even though we only publish one page a week.

Do you have any plans on creating your own webcomic/manga?

Coffee: yes and no. i sometimes draw small fan comics and id like to make more polished and "finished" ones in the future, but nothing with any kind of overarching plot, at least not in the near future. i have a very hard time making original content for whatever reason. i DO have one (1) personal project that is completely original, but i plan on making a game with that. then again i have NO idea what im doing with that project anymore so who knows, maybe one day i WILL decide to turn it into a comic! only time will tell…

Myne: I have a visual novel I'm working on. It's about teen super villains that have to go to reform school. Think teen titans meets gifted kid burnout. The game's been in development hell since our first alpha build and writing about apocalyptic civil unrest wasn't as fun as it was pre 2020. We're about 200k into the draft for the full game and we're having to switch engines, which means cutting a bunch of features, but we're slowly getting there. If that fails, I'll try adapting the story into a comic.

To those people who will see this and decide to strut down the path of comic creation what is some advice you can give them?

Coffee: i think the most HELPFUL advice i could give would be this: you dont have to do everything by yourself. i personally have taken tons of inspiration from indie artists/game designers/etc. some prime examples of this are daisuke amaya aka pixel (who created cave story) and toby fox (who created undertale and deltarune), who both made incredible pieces of art that were defining to me as a person when i discovered them either entirely alone or almost entirely alone. you hear stories all the time of these great pieces of art being made by one or two people, and ive always wanted to be like that. as a result ive alwasy had a hard time reaching out for help when it comes to my art, feeling like if i cant do it all alone that itll never be as good as it could be. as a result though, all this mindset does is keep things from actually getting done and needlessly stress you out. NONE of the warrior u comics would exist if i had never gotten help from myne, and the blog would have probably gone inactive a LONG time ago too. i think thats the biggest lesson ive learned from this whole thing personally. theres absolutely no shame in working with a team of people if thats what needs to happen to see a project be realized.

Myne: One, try not to put more than 8 panels on a page, that's helped me a bunch with page layout. And two, find someone you can show your work to. That can be a friend, a mutual online, a family member; as long as you have that one person asking "what happens next" you can keep writing. The stories/comics I have that are the longest are because of that.

What inspires your art and what would u say you consider your style to be?

Myne: Invader Zim, Danganronpa, and Pacthesis have heavily influenced my art style. (pacthesis made a series of free dating sims on deviant art). I've always considered my art style to be pretty shoujo manga, but lately some of my pieces have been labeled too western for weeb spaces.

What advise can you give the next person who wants to draw art and share it with the world?

Coffee: i give the same advice to everyone i meet that says theyre thinking of making art in any form, and i mean it from the bottom of my heart: DO IT! im so in love with art of all kinds and the process of creating it, and i think that getting into any creative hobby is nothing but a good thing and i deeply believe that everyone should do it. whether you wanna draw, write, make music, develop games, sculpt, knit, etc, do it! quality doesnt matter at all, you can make the most technically awful thing in the world but as long as you enjoyed the process of creating it then it still has value. dont be nervous about your art being good enough. if you dont want to share it then you arent obligated to! i dont share like 90% of the stuff that i make but i still create art almost every single day! recently my qpp (queerplatonic partner) has gotten into drawing and im SO happy for them. they primarily use mspaint and a mouse to draw and their art is SO adorable and i love it so much, and im not just saying that because i love them. it doesnt matter what skill level you start at or what tools you have, you can always start making art. and dont compare the art that you make to others art, which i know from experience is a VERY easy trap to fall into. i dont have as much to say about that point because im not as passionate about it but uhhh yeah :3

Myne: Social media algorithms are not going to make you happy; no matter how well you play the game and low engagement does not mean you're a bad artist. If you keep posting and talking to other artists, you'll find your audience.

So at wonder con where we met ylu were cosplaying power from chainsaw man with a group of girls who were cosplaying other chainsaw characters. Do you girls normally group up and cosplay and if so how did you get into it?

Myne: I was born into cosplay. My parents were gamers and cosplayers, and I started picking my own characters to cosplay when I was 14. I started getting more into it in college when I could find other people to cosplay with, it wasn't until this year I started aiming for photoshoots. I tend to be in at least one large group cosplay a con, and bring a different costume every day.

What was your favorite cosplay you've done?

Myne: It's a toss up between Persona 5 Joker and Alluring Secret Rin. Those were the ones I put the most work in that still hold up. Though I'm currently working on Eris from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that may overtake them.

Have you ever thought to cosplay someone from Warrior U?

Myne: I do actually! I've cosplayed as the main character Finn a few times. I really like taking simplified designs from comics/cartoons and turning them into heavily detailed looks. '

Where do you see warrior u being in 5 years from now?

Coffee: man, honestly if were STILL working on this project 5 years from now that would be CRAZY. this is already the longest ive worked on a single project before, along with being the most ive ever gotten DONE for a project, so thinking about what it could be like in 5 years is like. WOW. by that point we would have archived most (if not ALL) of the older stuff we could find, so our blog would probably just be new pages and fan interaction if were still going! the dream is still for a full fandom revival, and weve already got a small active fanbase (of like 5 people but still) so who knows, maybe that dream will be a reality?

Myne: We have at least 3 years worth of story drafted and lined up, and even more outlined. So ideally still updating. By then, we'll have some physical releases of the finished arcs that we've written available for purchase online and at select events. The creator has said she has no interest in making physical releases of the original run. I'd love for that to change, but I respect her decision and I won't press the matter. I'm just grateful we have permission to sell anything we make using her characters.

If you could go back in time 5 years, what advice would you give yourself?

Coffee: 15 and 16 were ROUGH ages for me tbh. i wont get into it because its super personal, but i was struggling with a lot and just generally not having a very good time. i think the best advice i could give to myself would just be that like. things will eventually get better. no matter how dark or hopeless things may be, theres always a silver lining and a light at the end of the tunnel. now if 15 year old me would have taken that to heart is a whole DIFFERENT question, but thats what i would say. 16 was like right before i (finally) started getting treatment for my mental health, so i think considering everything thats what i would say.

Myne: So many bad things happened during those five years, but… I wish I knew what burnout felt like, so I could recognize it. I have this tendency to put my self worth into “how much have you done today”, so once I started working full time and my father passed, I couldn’t recognize that I was physically and emotionally exhausted some days and needed rest, so I’d just punish myself mentally for not being more motivated. You shouldn’t need permission to rest, and I felt like I had to. It’s healthy to ‘nothing’ sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with things you have no control over.

Coffee: thank you for interviewing myne and i for your podcast :D!! its absolutely wild to think that ive done anything interview-worthy and yet here we are! for anyone thats interested in the comic because of this, i also emplore you to go check out the creators current comic "si3lah" (pronounced like si-ayn-lah i think? the 3 is a stand-in for an arabic letter) on gumroad! it deserves way more attention than it currently has and you should 100% go support the original creator if you like the stuff we do (wink wink).

#mod speak #interview #official

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sroloc--elbisivni · 2 years

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How’d you get into transformers originally? Who were ur fav characters when you first read or watched it?

ooh okay i've kind of answered this before so i'm going to go dig up an old answer

So back in the…faaaaall? of 2019? Probably before then but at least at that point, my friend Steph was trying to convince me to read Transformers comics again (MTMTE/LL) because the robots were gay, and I, longtime member of fandom and aware of how these things worked went ‘yeah, sure, the robots are gay.’ and then over winter break I was noodling around for something to watch while I put embroidery on a headphones case and hey, the Bumblebee movie is on Amazon Prime, that looks kind of interesting and I’ve seen enough bits and pieces go around Tumblr to have an inkling that it’s good. And it was kind of interesting! so from there I went and poked around the AO3 page, as one does–got vaguely annoyed that there was so little for Charlie/Memo, a complaint I continue to cherish–and not long after that someone I followed started to get really into MegOp in a fan-of-the-fandom way and I went 'ooh’, having now been introduced to Transformers as 'thing that can be kind of interesting’ so I went and read all of astolat’s MegOp fic. and that a lot of other people’s MegOp fic. and I maintained that I was only here for the 'robot Professor X and Magneto’ dynamic, and then I discovered Jazz Transformers was like if someone had taken my favorite character archetype of 'sneaky spy who is charming and friendly both because he genuinely likes people and because it is a good way to get information, who works happily as a second/third-in-command and may or may not be in love with his immediate superior and showing it through acts of service, and also capable of being really fucking dangerous’ and also mixed in 'musician, specifically bass player’ and I went 'this is an attack on me personally’ and then things….proceeded from there during quarantine. I watched the first season of TFP because it was on Netflix and recommended to me, I made my way through MTMTE/LL after a couple of tries and went 'oh you weren’t kidding these robots are gay’ and Steph and Rena went 'WE FUCKING TOLD YOU’ and then I started watching all of G1, which I’m still working on because I keep forgetting I’m doing that, and in about August of 2020 I mentioned to another friend, Jess, that I’d been getting into transformers and within a month I’d taken an idea we were tossing around for a random captured soldier/enemy general scenario and turned it into the first scene (and then the rest of the scenes) for Intelligence and it was the first thing I’d written in eight months and oops I was now a Transformers fan.

fav characters--transformers is such a tricky thing to answer this for because i really did get into this fandom-first and fanon transformers is such a different beast than canon; like i said up there, i loved megop and jazz and those get very different fanon and canon treatments and highlights. if we're going by JUST canon content, i still want more stuff with Memo--I also really loved Skids when I read MTMTE. I do have to say that G1 grabbed me with Hound and Mirage in the pilot and I'm still on this train.

#talky talk #asks #is this transformers #nortoz78889

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agerefandom · 3 years

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Kitchen Friends

Fandom: Marvel

Characters: Regressor!Reader (he/him pronouns), cgs!Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes

Words: 2,600

Summary: Bucky and Steve have been your friends for almost a year, and you don’t usually host the dinner nights. It’s a little stressful, but you’re excited to see Bucky and Steve!

Content Warnings: anxiety mentions, accidental injury, blood, involuntary regression, caregiver accidentally pushing too hard and getting called out, regression accidentally getting revealed. Brief references to wartime and trauma.

for @shadowdreamer5

It had been a rough day and you weren’t sure why.

Nothing upsetting had happened, but you woke up anxious and the feeling lingered through the day. You tried to push it down, get your chores finished. Steve and Bucky were coming over tonight, and you wanted your apartment to be presentable. Which meant you needed to do the dishes you’d been avoiding for the past few days.

Luckily, you’d already done the groceries, so you didn’t have to leave the house (just the thought made your heart beat faster).

With the help of your favourite playlist, you got down to business in the late afternoon. The dishes were finished, the floors were vacuumed, and you’d even dusted a few shelves before giving up on that particular chore.

You ran over your evening plans as you hummed along to the music. Steve and Bucky had been over to your place before, but this was the first time you were serving dinner. Usually, you just lost track of time when you were together and ended up ordering pizza when you realized it was dinnertime. Their apartment was much nicer, so you’d been there for dinner more often. Both Steve and Bucky were great cooks, and you were well-aware that you probably weren’t going to measure up, but that was alright. It was the thought that counted, as Steve often reminded you.

Steve was a good friend. You’d met Bucky first, at the library, both of you favouring the same reading nook tucked away in a private corner. After awkwardly running into each other for the fifth time, you had both resigned yourself to being friends. Bucky had introduced you to Steve later that week, and you’d been… well. Doing your best not to hyperventilate while meeting Captain America. He probably got that a lot.

You didn’t know their entire history, but you knew that they had been friends before the war (and wasn’t that strange to think about, the Second World War being something that they remembered?), and you knew that Bucky preferred to keep out of the media. As far as most of the world was concerned, Bucky Barnes had died in service seventy years ago. You hadn’t asked why he was walking around a public library in the twenty-first century, but you learned pieces of both of their past as you got to know them. It was a history defined by combat, duty, and bonds. You could understand why they now lived the way they did, deliberately normal: farmer’s markets and library books, flowers on the dining table. It was a reclaiming exercise, a carefully cultivated domestic sphere to retreat into when the fighting was done.

You smiled as you finished washing the bathroom sink, rinsing the suds down the drain. It was a keen pleasure to be included in their domestic life, your home a new retreat for them. They picked up your favourite Netflix shows, asked about your preferred stores and where you got your favourite button-up. While both of them seemed well-adjusted to the current time period, there was always much more to learn.

Your reverie was broken by a knock on the door.

Oh, crap. That was probably them. Was it really six already? You’d completely lost track of the time, and you’d been so busy with chores that you hadn’t started any of the food.

You eyed your sparkling bathroom with new contempt, tossed your sponge back onto the side of the bathtub, and went to open the door.

Sure enough, Steve and Bucky stood in the hall. Bucky was holding a salad and Steve cradled a plate of brownies. They were dressed down in jeans and t-shirts, Bucky’s shirt featuring a cat wearing sunglasses and Steve’s a plain grey.

“I told you guys not to bring anything,” you greeted them, frowning at the food in their hands.

“It felt wrong to come over with our hands empty,” Steve shrugged, and gave you the brownies. The pan was still slightly warm, and you were sure they were going to be melty, soft, and delicious. The man had a talent.

“Well, come in,” you said, and went to drop the brownies on the kitchen counter. “I haven’t started dinner yet, I’m sorry.” You were feeling a little more settled now that they were here. They toed off their shoes and put them in their place by the door. Bucky dropped the salad on the table and leaned on the counter as you grabbed vegetables from the fridge.

“Can we help?” Bucky said, snagging a red pepper from your hand and a cutting board from the dish-pile.

“Looks like you’re going to,” you pointed out. “And yeah, that would be great. Thank you.”

“What can I do?” Steve asked, joining you in the kitchen.

“Cut the broccoli and the beans.” You pushed them both into his arms, and put a cutting board on top. “It’s for a casserole, so cut them bite-sized.”

Steve offered a shining smile, balancing his armful of equipment. “Yessir,” he quipped, and went to do his work at the table, since your little kitchen was already a bit cramped with two people sharing counter-space.

“How have you been?” Bucky asked, slicing his pepper open and carving out the seeds inside. “It’s been over a week since we caught up.”

“Busy. Tired,” you said honestly. “Pulling through.”

“I feel that,” Bucky sighed. “Thanks for having us over, by the way. We’ve been looking forward to it.”

“So have I!” Your hands are busy peeling potatoes over the sink, but you give Bucky a smile. “Gives me a reason to clean the apartment, too.”

“We should come over more often,” Bucky teased.

“Maybe you should.”

You turned back to your work with a smile, but just then, your knife hit an odd divot in the potato you were peeling and dashed sideways into your thumb. You hissed as the blade cut into your finger, and dropped everything into the sink. The clatter caught the others’ attention, and Bucky was at your side in a flash.

Blood welled in the cut, and you felt abruptly dizzy. You’d never been good with blood, you remembered your mother teasing you about it when she’d cut herself in the kitchen. It had been just like this, dripping into the sink, and you’d cried and clung to her despite her protests.

You could feel the tears in your eyes now, either from the pain or the surprise. The blood kept coming, and you were scared. What if you had to go to the hospital? You hated the hospital. Needles and doctors and that awful smell of people dying. You couldn’t go to the hospital. They couldn’t make you go.

“It’s alright,” you could hear Bucky saying. “Just a little cut, Steve, get his first-aid kit. Above the bathroom sink.” A hand on your shoulder, solid but gentle. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll get it patched up right away.”

“Sorry,” you managed. Somewhere in the back of your head, you were aware that you were over-reacting to a little cut. But mostly you were just scared and tired and dizzy. “Bad at blood.” The weight of the day was rushing back in all at once, and you couldn’t handle it on top of everything else. Your knees gave out, but Bucky was there, scooping you up.

You could feel the cold of his metal arm even through the back of your t-shirt, his other arm looped under your knees as he lifted you.

“Oops,” Bucky said, as if he hadn’t meant to pick you up. “To the bathroom, I guess.”

You knew you shouldn’t, that you should protest and try to walk, but you couldn’t help but curl into Bucky’s chest as he carried you. They were so strong, these two, and it was easy to see in their bodies, but it was a different thing to feel the ease with which he lifted you, almost heedless of your weight.

“Is he okay?” you heard Steve ask, and the rustle of a bag. Probably your first-aid kit? Bucky said something about that.

“Overwhelmed,” Bucky said, and shifted you around in his arms. Suddenly, you were sitting on the couch on Bucky’s lap, which was kind of silly but also surprisingly comfy. “Ready for Doctor Rogers to fix that finger up?” he asked you, carefully picking up your injured hand.

You did your best to frown at him, but you were well aware that it probably looked more like a pout. He was talking to you like he knew that you were fighting off your regression, and that wasn’t fair at all. Bucky and Steve didn’t even know that you were a regressor.

Something cold pressed against your thumb, making you jump. You looked over to see Steve carefully wiping the blood from your hand, his expression almost comically focused on the task. He was even gentler with the area around the cut, but you still winced.

Bucky put a hand on the back of your neck, humming sympathetically.

Seriously, what was up with them? It felt like they were falling into caregiver behaviour, and you couldn’t call them out on that. But it was making it harder and harder to fight your regression, and you didn’t know what to do.

“Sorry, bud, but we’ve got to clean it before you get a band-aid,” Steve said, and smeared some cream across the cut. It didn’t hurt, but you weren’t expecting it, and you made a sharp noise of complaint. “Almost done,” Steve reassured you.

“Being so brave,” Bucky said, squeezing your uninjured hand. “Good job.”

Alright, that was it. That was not something that someone should say to an adult who had given himself a little cut. You pulled your hand from Steve’s grasp and got off Bucky’s lap, stumbling a little but determined to make your point.

“What’s going on?” you asked, hearing your voice wavering on the line between regressed and adult. “Why are you guys treating me like a kid?”

Steve and Bucky shared a look, and Steve ducked his head slightly.

“I’m sorry if we overstepped,” Steve said. “We… hm.” He stalled out, glancing at you and then at Bucky. “Do you know about a thing called age regression?” Steve said.

“I- what?” Your knees felt so weak. What was happening right now?

“It’s a coping mechanism, usually a reaction to trauma or stress,” Bucky explained. You could barely hear him over your heartbeat in your ears. “We saw it a lot in the tents between missions. People who feel a little younger when they’re not doing well. We didn’t have a word for it at the time.”

“We didn’t mean to push things,” Steve said, still apologetic. “I guess we have, patterns, for dealing with people who seem younger than usual. We didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You guys are… caregivers?” you managed.

“Yes!” Steve perked up. “Or, at least, we’d like to be. It was… it was…” He trailed off, and you noticed that Bucky had started holding his hand at some point.

“It was one of the things we shared with our old team,” Bucky finished for him. “We miss it. It was part of how we relaxed, taking care of our friends. But Steve’s right, we shouldn’t have pushed things with you. Old habits.”

“No, it’s. It’s okay.” You stared at your feet, feeling overwhelmed and dizzy and impossibly far behind. “You’re right, I’m a regressor. I didn’t think you knew.”

“We didn’t, really,” Bucky said. “Not until now.”

“I’m sorry.” The tears were threatening to start again, and you didn’t even know why. This was all so big and it felt so important but you couldn’t think. Your head hurt from all the crying, and your thumb was still aching, and you should have had dinner in the oven an hour ago. “I messed it all up.”

“No!” Both of them said immediately.

“We’re the ones who messed up,” Steve continued. “Of course it was scary to have your friends treat you like a child. Even if you were regressing, it would have been disorienting. We should have said something.”

“Maybe.” Steve has a point, it was pretty confusing. And they could have just asked you. “But it was nice.”

“Yeah? It wasn’t bad?” Bucky asked, looking hopeful.

“Gosh, no, of course not,” you rushed to reassure him. “It was really nice. I was just trying to stay big, and you were making it hard. But it was nice.” You needed to find another word, but it was just… nice!

“Well. You can be big if you want,” Steve said, fiddling with the corner of the first-aid bag. “You can put your own band-aid on and cook dinner.” You wait, knowing from his tone that he isn’t finished. “Or… we could help you put the band-aid on, and I can finish dinner while you show Bucky what you like to do when you’re younger.”

“That sounds good,” you confessed. “The second one.” You were still wavering in your adult headspace, and all you wanted to do is climb back into Bucky’s lap.

“Yeah?” Steve and Bucky both looked cheered by the idea. It was sweet that they were so excited about this. It must have really been something the two of them missed.

“Yeah.” You dug your socked toes into the carpet, suddenly shy. “Um, I’m pretty… small though. I dunno if you really want that.”

“How old are you, bud?” Steve asked, leaning forward.

You held your hand out with three fingers up. Now that you knew the nicknames are deliberate, they pushed you even deeper into your regression. You weren’t sure you could have talked if you wanted to.

“That’s not small at all,” Steve said seriously. “I think you’re a very big, brave boy, who still needs a band-aid for his finger.”

Bucky patted his lap and held out a hand, a clear invitation.

You walked forward to him, feeling a little out of your body, certain that this was a dream. But Bucky’s lap was just as comfy as you remembered, and it was easy to lean into his chest and drift. Steve lifted your hand, wiped it down again, and then produced a band-aid from the bag. It was one of your patterned ones, and you fought the urge to hide your face when you realized it was one of the Iron Man ones.

“Ah, I see how it is,” Steve teased, and then gently wrapped it around your finger, smoothing the adhesive. “Well, as long as you’re protected, it’s alright.” He kissed the tip of your finger where it poked out from the band-aid, and this time you couldn’t fight the instinct to hide your face against Bucky’s chest.

“You’re embarrassing him,” Bucky chuckled, running a hand over the back of your head, fingers slipping through your hair. “Give him a break, he’s only three.”

You made a little happy sound and pushed into Bucky’s fingers. You’d always liked getting your head petted when you were regressed. It was the most wonderful feeling, especially after a bottle or a warm meal.

Bucky obediently continued to pet your head, and Steve got to his feet.

“Well, I’d better tackle dinner,” Steve said. “You two enjoy the rest, and I’ll let you know when it’s in the oven.”

“Thanks, Stevie,” Bucky said. “I think it’s going to be a good night, even if dinner’s a little late.”

Nuzzling closer into Bucky’s chest as his fingers trailed through your hair, you found that you had to agree.

#fandom agere #marvel agere #agere writing #agere fanfiction #my writing #my fics #mcu agere #i'm pleased with the fanfiction and displeased with the banner i made for it #c'est la vie!!!#marvel

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ilikekidsshows · 3 years

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One thing that pisses me off not just about the miraculous fandom but modern fandoms is fans inability to consume long overarching stories.

Like so many people are complaining about how long the reveal is taking or why haven't certain characters outgrown this trait yet or why is this character arc botched or abandoned. Like guys we just got the confirmation this show will be 7 seasons long PLUS like 3 tv specials. We're only roughly halfway through the series.

Once the reveal happens half the tension in the show is gone! I'm not saying leave the reveal till season 7 and make us wait 9 years this isn't HIMYM but miraculous is not a fast paced story. It's a long haul story. I just wish more fans would be patient. Miraculous is in the extremely fortunate and rare position that it will have a conclusive end and not be suddenly cancelled. That was and still is a huge problem for shows and cartoons with dedicated fans but networks pull the plug for stupid ass reasons.

So miraculous fans please chill the fuck out on things not resolving right away. We still have 78+ episodes plus the tv specials. If we get the end to certain things now it'll be so boring.

I think the concept of Instant Gratification describes the issue with many modern fandoms today. I hate to sound like I'm anti-technology, but the constant stream of quick and short bursts of entertainment allowed by the information age has made people more impatient. It's not about waiting for the climax to get a deeper sense of satisfaction, it's about getting that instant gratification right this instant. It's why one-shot fanfics are all over the place, when multi-chapter stories used to be just as common and popular, if not even more so, and it’s also why people are less willing to read a fic that’s still a work in progress. It's why people refuse to watch Youtube video essays even as they leave comments on the topic based on the title and thumbnail alone because, while they couldn't be assed to watch a 20-minute video (let alone an hour long one), they sure can spend that time calling the Youtuber names and making arguments the video actually already refutes. It's why a lot of online arguments happen only because one party read nothing but the first and maybe the last paragraph of someone's post and skipped all the explanation for their point of view (if I've ignored an counter argument for one of my posts, it was either because I missed it or because said counter argument did this. I have attention deficit issues so I do genuinely forget responses sometimes, but I'm also not writing a second essay for someone who's proven to me they won't read it).

Of course, it's only by constantly consuming only fast-paced content that you can become this impatient. People have different ideas about stories based on what stories they have encountered in the past.

Another thing that influences the Miraculous fandom in particular is that, while I love to show off exactly how much Miraculous has done to build up the overarching plotlines, Miraculous isn't really a show that's about a single story. It's easy to understand why people think it is one though: there's one main villain, we keep discovering more about the mythology, one of the main plot threads is the romantic relationship between the leads and singular episodes and plot elements tend to get payoff later. What is the purpose of a show if not to progress the story? Because the heroes aren't getting closer to defeating Gabriel or getting together, people think that the story isn't accomplishing anything.

I'll do a comparison to illustrate why these things aren't as clear-cut signs of a continuous storyline as people think. In the Spider-Man comics, you can pick any issue up and the chances are that the villain will be a part of Spider-Man's already established Rogues Gallery, who's back for more after who knows how many defeats, and those past defeats might even get referenced in callbacks to previous issues. It's also very possible that Peter and Mary Jane's relationship is the central focus with them not being together yet, having relationship problems or even having broken up (in really old issues the girl might be Gwen Stacy and short-term options have also always been available for romantic entanglements). Does this mean Spider-Man is a continuous story where the only point is that all the villains get put away for good and Peter and MJ live happily ever after? No, it doesn't. Spider-Man is designed to go on indefinitely, so there's no clear ending point. So, what is the point of Spider-Man then, if there is no Ending?

It used to be the single issue, because comic books used to have every issue be a stand-alone story about the hero and their supportive cast. These days it's more every three-to-six issues, because superhero comics are written to have short story arcs that can then be collected into trade paperbacks. A superhero series is not a single story; it's a series that functions as a story engine, meaning the series can generate several shorter stories where the hero helps fix a problem or solve a mystery.

In the superhero genre a villain will never get killed off or removed from stories permanently as long as the writers think they can still come up with stories to tell about them. The hero's romantic life will never be completely smooth sailing unless the writer is using other things to ramp up the stakes. Everything always allows for there to be another adventure.

I think the huge success of Avatar: the Last Airbender made people think that a series that is a single story is always superior to a series with multiple shorter plots. When I was liveblogging Sailor Moon, a viewer offered to give me a list of all the non-filler episodes because they genuinely thought I'd feel like I was wasting time on the show otherwise. This attitude is simply not based on fact. It's not fair to compare Miraculous Ladybug to Avatar, because they're both setting up to do completely different things. Miraculous Ladybug is trying to become a brand, like Batman or Spider-Man. It is part of the "Zag Heroes" lineup, a series of French-created superhero franchises to compete in the America-centric superhero market. This challenge is good for the genre, because Marvel and DC have started resembling each other more and more as these companies stew in their old ideas and copy everything that worked for the other one. The superhero genre needs new blood.

Also, Avatar: the Last Airbender first became popular by doing episodic plots for almost the entirety of the first season because it's actually not a wise choice to expect the audience to be willing to commit to a story that'll only give payoff later when working with an untested IP. Very often shows with longer story arcs start with the episodic format to hook people first, and sometimes the more linear plot is introduced specifically because the audience for the show is now expected to be both dedicated enough and older and capable of keeping up. Because, here's the thing: you can't expect little kids to remember every episode or even every character you've introduced in your show. I'm not sure if people are ready to hear that but I'm throwing it out there anyway. Kids are not dumb, they can understand more complex storylines, but many kids are still training their memory, so they might not remember the details of complex storylines that go on for too long.

This is why the news that Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season was going to have a recommended viewing order originally had me concerned. Miraculous is being branded for kids. The plot requiring too much skill in memorizing story details will make it less accessible to kids and might put those two additional seasons at risk. However, it seems that the "constantly changing status quo" concept of Truth, Lies and Gang of Secrets was a fluke and the evolution of the show is more subtle, so they might not be cutting the amount of episodes for those final seasons because the show is getting too complicated for kids to follow all the important details.

Regardless, Miraculous Ladybug being an adventure cartoon TV show instead of a comic book or a more cheaper-to-produce TV drama does mean that Miraculous Ladybug isn’t expected to go on for decades like a superhero comic or a soap opera. Because of this, it can have evolution and changes and even a planned ending. The show is expected to end at some point, even by the people making money off of it, mostly because making a cartoon like this indefinitely costs a lot of money, and kids’ adventure shows tend to see a decrease in returns if they go on for too long.

#media and fandom response #ml fandom salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir

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gyroshrike · 3 years

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Tell me why you love Gamtav; give me a whole rambling essay if you can. I like seeing people excited over the things and ships they like!

Oh, are you sure you want this? Do you really want to open Pandora's Box? Are you ready for the amount of rambling I can do about GamTav? How much time do you have? Because this is going to be a doozy. I haven't even started writing it and I can tell.

And before I get into it, people gotta know that most of this is based off of pre-murderstuck Gamzee

What do I like about GamTav? What do I like about GamTav??? One of the things that plays into me loving this ship so much is how much I love Gamzee and Tavros as individuals. Whenever I start reading a new piece of media, without question my favorite characters are almost always the really, really nice ones. Boku no Hero Academia? Kirishima. Anohana? Poppo. Legend of Korra? Bolin. And in the beginning of Homestuck, Gamzee and Tavros are just really, really NICE.

Oh, well, Gamzee is really, really nice. When we first see Tavros, he’s being a little shit to the kids, but that's because he was intentionally trying to troll. But once we get into Act 5 and we see Tavros interact with his friends, we realize he's generally a really kind person. His conversations with Nepeta, Gamzee and Aradia are all really sweet. His pesterlog with Vriska, which is the first one we get to see after he is revealed to us as a character, immediately paints a picture of him as someone struggling with his self-esteem and someone who is trying really hard to build himself up as a person. Way to fuckin’ endear me to a character IMMEDIATELY.

For most of the early comic until Act 5, we see all the trolls trolling the kids and even talking shit back and forth to each other. Gamzee was one of the first trolls who we see be purely sweet and supportive to his friends. His first pesterlog after we’re introduced to him is with Karkat and Karkat does nothing but talk shit. xD He does his usual song and dance of saying just the absolute worst things possible in that Karkat way of his and Gamzee just laughs and nods and basically says, “Yeah brother, you go, I love you, you're my best friend.”

We see Gamzee talk with Equius and we already know at this point that Equius is weird, but Gamzee is so jazzed to be talkin’ with his friend. He's just so supportive of Equius and even when Equius tells Gamzee that he must stop doing soper, Gamzee just says, “Okay, sure, you got it, I trust what you're telling me because you're my friend.” Now Equius is not actually ready for Gamzee to listen to him and backtracks and is like, “Wait, no, you don't have to listen to me, let's roleplay instead,” and Gamzee's like, “I don't know how to roleplay, but I'll try for you bro.” He’s just really fucking cute???

Short version: When we meet them, Tavros is someone you want to root for and Gamzee is just the nicest guy on the planet.

Gamzee loves his friends so much and from early on it's made apparent that he wants to love and support them, and would honestly do a lot for them even if he doesn't know what he's doing.

Also along with just being a generally sweet guy Tavros is the nerd archetype I love? He loves the troll equivalent of Pokemon and card games and other things like that. Also he just really loves animals? And I always love the characters who love animals. It's a really big weakness I have. Not to mention, talking with them? That's so COOL? So badass??? Like, UM???? He could control them, but he doesn't like forcing them to do bad things against their will. (Going off of how when suggested he control the imps to defeat them, but feels like that would be unfair/mean.)

SPEAKING OF THE IMPS. Of the twelve trolls, Tavros and Gamzee are the two of them who BEFRIENDED their imps. Isn't that so fucking rad????? They both started off fighting them at first, but then they both later mention that they are able to chill with their imps instead. Gamzee shares pie with them and Tavros communicates with them using his powers. I freaking LOVE that parallel. When I first noticed it I almost keeled over. See, I'm also a sucker for characters who like to attempt peace before conflict, so of course I'm going to love that both of them made friends instead of enemies.

So Act 5 Homestuck has already set me up to basically completely love these two characters. Now, I am a really big shipper. In almost every piece of media I go into I generally come out with ships and that's a big way that I engage with fandom. Now Homestuck, I actually didn't ship that much at first when I first started reading, which is pretty strange for me. I think I just kind of let the ships fall into my lap up until that point. I know my brain had really enjoyed the ideas of Karkat and Terezi, Dave and Terezi, and had even teased inklings of "What if?" and "Oh, I like them," about Rose and Kanaya. But for the most part I wasn't really into Homestuck for shipping at first.

The concept of GamTav, or PBJ as it was more commonly referred to then, was introduced to me by my friends. I had two irl friends who were reading the comic with me and they were ahead of me by some decent amount of pages at the time. At one point they started making references to PBJ and really liking PBJ and I was a little confused because I didn't quite know what they were referring to at first. I learned pretty soon that PBJ was Gamzee and Tavros and I remember being really excited for the ship because it was the first time I'd seen my friends get that excited for a ship. Which is really funny because now in the twilight years of the Homestuck fandom, of the three of us, I'm the only one gripping white-knuckled onto GamTav and breathing it like my life depends on it, while the other two have moved on to much different things. If I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure one of them doesn't even really like Gamzee that much anymore, but respects how much I love him and lets me rant and rave to her about him whenever I want.

It wasn't long after that that I finally got to the infamous "Make out a little" conversation between Gamzee and Tavros. I read the pesterlog and suddenly everything I had seen and heard from my friends made sense. I mean, not that I'm saying that's the ONLY reason GamTav makes sense. I just mean I understood what my friends specifically were talking about. Of the pesterlogs we've seen between them before that, Gamzee and Tavros obviously had a decent friendship. I'm pretty sure in the comic Gamzee was the first person to have a pesterlog with Tavros who is genuinely nice to him. (And this is conversation happens directly after Tavros’ conversation with Vriska, so it’s a wild contrast.) So as a friendship, I was already super down with Gamzee and Tavros-- you know what? Now that I think about it, I feel like I remember in [S] Make Her Pay being disappointed that Gamzee and Tavros were fighting alone and not with each other. Because a lot of the other trolls had paired up to be cool duos, you know? We had Karkat and Terezi, Feferi and Sollux, Nepeta and Equius, and I think I remember being bummed that Gamzee and Tavros weren't paired up. So I, at the very least, think I wanted things for these two even if I hadn't stepped into the realm of actually shipping them yet. I don't remember, this was YEARS ago.

Anyway, the infamous makeout conversation happens, and I'm sold hard for life. I have a lot of other Homestuck ships that I'm into and I enjoy, but none have ever, ever, ever, ever come close to GamTav.

I realize that I've written so much and I still haven't gotten to the meat of why I like them.

So I like ships where the parties involved are best friends. I love it when the characters in a ship are bros who love hanging out, who love doing silly things together. That awesome video "What your favorite Homestuck ship says about you" had me dead to rights. Called me out so hard. My ideal ship dynamic is "being stupid together"? Way to come for the throat. That's exactly it. At their core, Gamzee and Tavros are one of the funnest bro combinations I have ever seen. And what makes them so fun is both of them are huge dorks. HUGE dorks.

When we first meet Gamzee, he stares off into the colors of his miracle modus while making the most ridiculous face, tries to unicycle but just fuckin' pieruettes right off if it because his legs are too short, and just straight up reaches into his modus with his bare hands. Don't even get me started on how he scares himself with his own horns. That shit kills me.

We've already talked about how Tavros is a huge nerd, so that's covered. But like… have you heard him rap? This guy just gets so into it and has so much fun while simultaneously sounding so silly. He's flirty and awkward and ridiculous and has this shit eating grin on all the time.

They are those two friends who get up to shenanigans where everyone else around them just kind of shakes their head and thinks that they're so dumb (in an affectionate way), but they don't care because all they DO care about is how much fun they're having together.

One of my favorite things about Homestuck in general is it lets its characters be bad at things. John and Karkat suck at coding. Gamzee, Tavros, and Dave are bad at rapping. Rose becomes a prolific author, but I would argue she's bad at writing when she's 13 because, wow is it a slog to get through her wizard fanfiction LMAO.

And GamTav is a perfect example of two people who just have fun together being bad at things together. There's no pretense of needing to be cool or needing to be good at something or any type of shame or embarrassment. They're just so silly and they don't mind being silly around each other and they never make the other person ashamed of who they are. We even see some of that last bit in the comic. Gamzee never puts Tavros down. In one conversation, he acknowledges Tavros' disability, but doesn't taunt Tavros for it, doesn't make it a joke, or make him feel bad. It's just acknowledged and then they move on. Then Tavros mentions that while he doesn't share Gamzee's religious or spiritual views, he is supportive of them. I am such a sucker for shit like that.

In every way, shape, and form, Gamzee and Tavros are supportive of each other and just and totally uplift the other person. Both of these characters go through so much verbally (both jokingly and maliciously) at the hands of their peers for being who they are that Gamzee and Tavros' conversations were so refreshing to just see them be unabashedly themselves with another person.

And they make each other happy! Tavros' first conversation with Gamzee was the first time we see where Tavros is purely elated to be talking to the person he is talking to. And Tavros obviously makes Gamzee really happy. They just make each other so happy! And I love that shit!

Gamzee is, without restraint, supportive of everything that is Tavros. Gamzee is the type of person who would look at anything Tavros wants to do or is trying to do and put his whole heart in supporting Tavros and telling him, "Yeah bro, you can do this, you're amazing, I love you, go get 'em, you're the best, you can do anything you put your mind to,” and I love that for Tavros.

Gamzee was the friend I spent all of Homestuck wishing Tavros had. Tavros spent so much time talking to Vriska, interacting with Vriska, adventuring with Vriska. And that entire time I was just wishing that Gamzee was there instead, just so Tavros would have someone to be nice to him.

After murderstuck, I spent years waiting for Gamzee and Tavros to meet in a dream bubble. That was all I wanted. I wanted Gamzee to have to look Tavros in the eye and face what he had done, own up to everything to the person he loved most in the world. But of course, post murderstuck, Gamzee gets everything stripped away from him that made him the character he was in the beginning. It wasn't even a satisfying villain arc! It was just confusing! I feel like I could have dealt with it if Gamzee was a well-rounded villain. But instead his entire villain shtick was just surrounded by a bunch of question marks! I spent all of Homestuck waiting to learn what exactly was going on with Gamzee and then we never got that and that fucked me up.

And of course, oh, of course, up until the very end of the series, in the very, very, very last animation we ever see, Homestuck Act 7, Tavros is standing by Vriska's side, as he has had to do since the very beginning.

I haven't read the epilogues or Homestuck 2, so I'm not going to touch on anything that happens in those series and I would appreciate it if no one responded to this with spoilers. Don't even tell me things like, "Oh, you'll like Gamzee," or "Oh, you'll hate Gamzee," or anything like that. I don't want any hints. I already got enough. I want to form my own opinion when I finally get the energy to go in.

Nowadays, I stick almost exclusively to humanstuck AU's for my GamTav. Because even if canon GamTav wasn't so sad and depressing, there are other things that make me way too sad to think about. As a bronze blood, Tavros's lifespan is going to be significantly shorter than Gamzee's. No matter the good or bad context surrounding their relationship. Even if they were the perfect, fluffy, happy couple in canon, I can't deal with that lifespan difference. It breaks my goddamn heart.

I live in a world where I can rewrite the circumstances surrounding these characters and make it play out in a way that is much more to my liking. Writing them in humanstuck AU's lets me take away all of the things that make my heart hurt and instead repurpose them for really meaningful, emotional character building arcs and that's my main focus when it comes to GamTav.

Something I'm also really picky with when it comes to this ship is that I need the core of Gamzee and Tavros' character growth to happen apart from each other. I have found that I don't like stories that center Gamzee and Tavros or their relationship as the pivotal point of their development. I don't like when Gamzee is the pillar of Tavros' confidence. I do like when Gamzee helps out building Tavros' confidence by being supportive and saying nice things and encouraging him, but I don't like it when he is the main source. I don't want Tavros' growth to be hinged on Gamzee being in his life.

The same goes for Gamzee. I don't like stories where Tavros is the one thing keeping Gamzee from doing bad things. I don't like when their relationship is framed as being the one thing keeping Gamzee from going murder mode all over his friends again. I've read fics where Gamzee struggles either with murderous instincts as a troll or mental health as a human and Tavros is one of the only things that keeps him from going off the deep end. I don't like that. I want Gamzee's growth to be primarily on his own or at the very least not supported by his romantic partner. Of course, I love it when Tavros is there when he needs him to hold him or soothe him or say kind things or help him through his struggles. I'm not saying I don't want Tavros to comfort him at all or ever, I just don't want Tavros to be his sole anchor.

I just love idiot best friends in love.

Oh, OH! ALSO. Gamzee doesn’t give a FUCK about the hemospectrum. One of the first things he says to Equius is how he doesn’t get it, how he’s not better than anyone else, how he doesn’t even know how to ACT better than anyone else. How am I not supposed to love that?

Opposite sides of the hemospecturm relationships are so fun. I love the idea of Gamzee entering a room full of strangers and them being like “Oh no! :O !!!! Scary subjuggulator!!” and Tavros comes rushing over all happy and excited and they just snuggle all cute and gross and everyone watching’s jaw just drops.

This might sound weird, but I also think one of the things that endear me to characters is them getting misinterpreted and then me having fun drawing them more ‘accurately’? Tavros is so often depicted as uwu soft weepy boi and I love drawing him with a mischievous grin just as ready to do something stupid and get himself into trouble as Gamzee is. Equius TOLD Tavros not to go near the stairs with his new robo legs. What is one of the things Tavros does immediately? Go try the fuckin’ stairs. And he KEEPS DOING IT.

*lays down on the floor* I just… I just want domestic GamTav where they move into a nice wheelchair accessible home (modified in a similar way to Tavros' hive in Pesterquest) and Gamzee massages Tav's back when it aches and tells him he's the light of his life and in turn Tavros holds Gamzee close on his darker days and Tavros kisses his hands and brushes his hair out of his eyes and boops his nose and they laugh so hard together that they cry.

#homestuck #gamtav #gamzee x tavros #gamzee makara #tavros nitram #hs pbj #homestuck pbj #asks for me #anon #HERE IS IS ANON #RAMBLY AS ALL HELL

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uhlikzsuzsanna · 3 years

Link

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you haven’t seen all of Season 1 of “Loki,” currently streaming on Disney Plus.

Ever since “Loki” first premiered in June, Kate Herron, who directed all six episodes of the Marvel Studios series, has had to pretend like she knew far less than she really does. For one, she couldn’t acknowledge that the homages to sci-fi classics like “Blade Runner” and “Brazil” that she’d baked into the elaborate sets for the Time Variance Authority — the cosmic bureaucracy tasked with maintaining the sacred timeline — were “meant to be sinister” rather than just “playful and quirky.”

For another, Herron was delighted to see fans theorizing after the very first episode that Kang the Conqueror — a character already set to appear in the Marvel Studios feature “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” as played by Jonathan Majors — was really pulling the strings of the TVA. But until the finale streamed last Wednesday, she couldn’t even hint that those fans were only half right: Majors does play the mastermind of the TVA, but he’s a variant of Kang referred to as He Who Remains. It’s only after He Who Remains encounters Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his female variant counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and Sylvie plunges a blade into his heart, that the multiverse is reborn, creating the possibility for Kang the Conqueror to emerge.

Again, though: Herron couldn’t acknowledge any of that, even to those closest to her.

“Nothing has prepared me better for working with Marvel than playing tabletop games with my friends,” she says with a laugh. “It definitely taught me how to have a good poker face. You have to hide your hand — and sometimes lie.”

Now, thankfully, all of that is behind her — as is “Loki” itself. Despite receiving widespread acclaim for her assured, ambitious, and visually sumptuous work directing the show, Herron says she has decided not to return for Season 2 of the series.

“I gave it everything — in my soul, in my heart, everything,” she says. “I feel so proud of the work we’ve done. And yeah, I’ll be enjoying Season 2 as a fan.”

She’s quick to sing the praises of everyone she worked with at Marvel, and she says she’s “sure” she’ll work again with the studio. For now, however, she’s ready to take a holiday, and then turn to a project she’s writing herself “that’s really close to my heart that I really want to make.”

“It’s my own decision, but I just feel like my part with ‘Loki’ is finished now and I’m just excited to see where his story goes,” she says.

Before she parts ways for good, however, Herron spoke with Variety about bringing Jonathan Majors into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what she thought of the shocking revelation about infinity stones and what she would like to see happen in Season 2.

She always knew “Loki” would introduce Kang and the Multiverse…

From the very start, Herron says, she and head writer Michael Waldron knew that their six-episode run of “Loki” would always end with Loki and Sylvie meeting He Who Remains at his citadel, the result of which would cause the creation of the multiverse.

As Episode 6 makes clear, both of these events were massive turning points for the future of the MCU — and Herron still can’t quite believe she got to be the one to make them a reality.

“We were just, like, waiting to be told, ‘Actually, guys, we’ve had a change [of heart],'” Herron says. Instead, Herron says she and “Quantumania” director Peyton Reed participated in casting Majors in the role.

“I was just like, pinch me,” she says. “I can’t believe I was at the table for that, because I know it was such a big decision for them all.”

Herron also decided to have Majors provide the voices for all three “Timekeepers” who are supposedly at the head of the TVA, but are revealed by Sylvie to be nothing more than “mindless androids.”

“We didn’t have someone cast for those voices,” she says. “I remember thinking, well, ‘Wizard of Oz’ is clearly a reference for us. We should have the wizard. It’d be great if it’s Jonathan. So we sent him all the art of the timekeepers. And he just kind of came up with these incredible voices for each of them.”

…but not with a cliffhanger.

The most significant decision of the season, though, may be that it ends with a giant cliffhanger, when Loki discovers he’s in a brand new reality for the TVA in which Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) don’t even recognize him. But while Herron knew how this season of “Loki” would end, at first, she did not know that there would be any more seasons after it.

“When I started, there wasn’t a discussion of Season 2, exactly,” she says. “It was just that season of ‘Loki.’ As we got deeper into production, everyone was very happy, and obviously there’s so much to explore with Loki. It felt like we should continue the story. So I think the cliffhanger ending came in later in the process.”

Herron says she sprinkled in some hints to viewers that Loki is in a new timeline, like redressing sets to look slightly off, and recasting Eugene Cordero’s TVA receptionist Casey as a hunter headed to the armory in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. But her favorite bit is that the final line — said by Mobius to Loki — is the same as the first line spoken in the show, by a woman in the Gobi desert, also to Loki: “Who are you?”

“That was kind of the question of the whole first season,” Herron says.

She was just as shocked about the Infinity Stones as everyone else.

In the first episode, Loki discovers to his horror that not only does his magic not work inside the TVA, but Infinity Stones — heretofore believed to be the most powerful objects in the known universe — are just inert rocks there. The revelation sent shockwaves across the Marvel fandom; Herron was right there with them.

“That was in Michael’s script when I first got it to pitch [for the directing job],” she says. “I remember being like, ‘WHAT?! You put me through so much!’ But then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s kind of genius, because it shows how powerful the TVA are. Who are these people? What is this place?'”

Herron especially appreciated how her shock — and the audience’s — mirrored Loki’s own as the rug gets pulled out from under him. “I was quite excited by it,” she says. “It really shows you that there’s a new power in the MCU — and it’s not what we we spent the last decade dedicating our lives to.”

She told Kevin Feige she wanted gender parity among her crew.

Prior to “Loki,” Herron’s most high profile job was directing the second half of the first season of the Netflix dramedy “Sex Education.” She got the “Loki” job thanks to a 60-page pitch memo that filled out just about every detail of the world of the show. After hiring her, she says Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige asked her, “What are your terms?”

“This was the first time I was gonna get to hire my heads of department on a television show I worked on,” she says. “I was like, I’d really love [the crew] to be 50/50 across gender.”

Herron says she wasn’t out to fill any jobs on the film with a specific gender. But, she says, “There aren’t enough women in these roles. They’re out there. It’s a lack of opportunity. It’s not a lack of interest.”

She did end up hiring two women for critical roles that are still rarely occupied by women: cinematographer Autumn Durald (“The Sun Is Also a Star”) and composer Natalie Holt (History’s “Knightfall”).

“I felt like she was inside my mind,” Herron says of Durald. “We have the same taste. And I love the way that she talks about light as a character.”

Herron hired Holt unusually early for a composer, after she’d completed editing the first episode during the pandemic shutdown. She knew that the particular sci-fi film noir look of the show that she was developing with Durald needed similarly unique music, and she liked that part of Holt’s pitch was focusing on Loki’s identity as a character.

“Her music then started to inspire how I wanted to shoot other scenes,” Herron says. She’s especially enamored of Holt’s vision for her dynamic and foreboding theme for the TVA.

“She was like, ‘Oh, let’s have that theme be Kang’s’ — well, He Who Remains, I guess, in our show. But I hope that will go on to be Kang’s theme. That was the real fun of it is that you feel like he’s really played a hand now across the whole show, because you realize that music is his music.”

Herron, Durald, and Holt all deliver distinctive and superlative work that’s nothing like the MCU has quite seen before — and nothing quite like anything previously in their careers, either. And that’s entirely the point.

“I think for us, it was about just showing people what we could do and that we could do it at this level,” Herron says.

The episode in which Loki comes out as bisexual was inspired by Alfonso Cuarón and Richard Linklater.

Every episode of “Loki” features multiple extended scenes of two characters just talking to one another, a rarity in a comic book production. Herron says that cutting Episode 1 together during the pandemic lockdown and seeing the scenes between Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) play out so well “definitely gave us confidence” to continue that rhythm for the rest of the show.

That was especially true for Episode 3. Written by Bisha K. Ali (who went on to create the upcoming Marvel Studios series “Ms. Marvel”), the episode is essentially an extended meet-cute between Loki and Sylvie as they get to know each other on a planet doomed for total annihilation.

“Bisha’s reference was ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Children of Men,'” says Herron. “And it lit my brain on fire. It was kind of weird. It was almost like a bottle episode in the sense that we’re just with the two characters, but obviously, it’s Marvel, right? So they’re bonding in this Apocalypse, which also feels very Loki at the same time.”

That episode is best known for making Marvel Studios history, when Loki casually mentions that he’s had dalliances with both men and women. Herron says that when she first interviewed for the job, she asked if the show was going to acknowledge Loki’s sexuality, which had long been established in the comics as bisexual or pansexual.

“I think everyone wanted to acknowledge it,” she says. “It was just really about giving a care and consideration and doing it in the right way. I think everyone knew it was gonna be quite a big moment. So it was just really about doing it in a way that felt respectful. And honoring it.”

Herron also confirms what many fans had suspected, that she deliberately made the lighting scheme for the scene evoke the blue, purple and red of the bisexual flag. “We knew what we were doing with that scene,” she says with a smile.

She has a lot of ideas for what she’d like to see in Season 2.

Since Herron will be watching Season 2 of “Loki” only “as a fan,” she is also free to wildly speculate as to what she’d most like to see happen — like how, wherever Loki story leads, “we’ve opened the door” for the character to explore his sexuality with men as well as women.

Otherwise? She says she wants to know where Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) goes to when she leaves the TVA in search, she tells Mobius, of “free will.”

“I love her,” Herron says. “Gugu used to always call her an indoor girl, which made me laugh, but she is. She’s in the office, but she used to be this kick-ass Hunter. So I’m like, Okay, well, where’s her path going?”

Herron is also keen to learn more about Hunter B-15’s backstory — since she deliberately decided to hide it in the scene in Episode 4 when Sylvie shows B-15 her repressed memories as a variant.

“I was like, we shouldn’t see her memories,” Herron says. “It’s a character that thought they had power and realizes they have no power. It felt really powerful to at least give her some power in that scenario. The memories are private. They’re hers.” She pauses. “Also as a fan, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, who is she?!'”

“And obviously, you know, Loki and Sylvie?” Herron continues, on a roll. “He’s in a completely different reality. What’s going to happen to him? How will he get back? Or will he get back? And where’s Sylvie? She’s still in the Citadel? And the multiverse of it all. What the hell is going to happen?!”

Herron chuckles at her own excitement. “So I think there’s so many questions to be answered, and so much more road to travel with all our characters,” she says. “You know, I’m really proud that I got to set up Loki’s story here. But there’s so many different aspects of his identity and personality that’s yet to be explored. I’m excited to see where it goes.”

#Loki #Loki series #Tom Hiddleston #Kate Herron #Jonathan Majors #variety interview #2021.07.17

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helenarlett-rex · 3 years

Text

Helen rambles on in a long post about her her relationship with Ninja Turtles.

Something my readers may or may not know about me is that I am a huge old school fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was born at just the right time to be just the right age for the original Ninja Turtles cartoon back when it first came out in 1987. I lived through the big Ninja Turtle boom of the late 80s/early 90s when you couldn’t turn on a TV or step outside your house without having the Ninja Turtles shoved into your face one way or another. And I loved it. It was glorious. I fully blame Ninja Turtles for turning me into a furry. And I’m cool with that...

As a kid I watched TMNT every single day, read the comic books any chance I had to get my hands on them, and had a massive collection of Ninja Turtles toys. (Like... thinking back to the financial state we were in when I was a kid, I’m really not sure how my parents even afforded to buy all the stuff I had.) Until the day came that Ninja Turtles became “occultic,” and then I didn’t have any of that anymore... My mother bought into the satanic panic pretty hard back then so it was always just a matter of time before something I loved became “of the Devil” and it would be taken away from me. Once my Ninja Turtles collection (which would have been pretty fucking valuable today if I still had all of it) made its way to the dreaded bi-annual yard sale, I wound up slipping from the fandom.

I never fell out of it entirely. Yeah, I never got to watch the original cartoon all the way to the end of the series, but I would catch an episode here and there when my mother wasn’t around. And by the time The Next Mutation started airing in 1997 enough time had passed that Ninja Turtles wasn’t on my mother’s shit list anymore (she’d moved on to other things) so when I was a teenager I got back into watching Turtles with that series. I watched the 2003 series, and the 2012 series after that... But it never really went back to being something I was obsessed over like it had been when I was a kid. It was just something I watched on TV because it was nostalgic.

Ninja Turtles still held a special place in my heart... Always has... I’d even attribute much of career as a writer to the existence of TMNT. Eastman and Laird kind of came up with the idea as something of a joke, but then they published it anyways and despite how insane the idea was, it became a massive hit. So I’ve always looked back at Ninja Turtles and told myself no idea is too stupid or insane to find an audience or even become successful. But even with the esteem I hold for the franchise, I wouldn’t have considered myself in the fandom anymore.

So when IDW got the rights to start producing comic books for Ninja Turtles I didn’t really pay it any attention. I had read the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic book published by Archie comics back in the day, but by this time I had fallen into just being a casual fan so I wasn’t really interested in getting back into comics. I was happy to see that someone was publishing comics for it again... Just didn’t feel any need to read them.

And then I heard that IDW had introduced a 5th turtle... A turtle woman... And I was like, that’s cool. We already had Venus de Milo back in The Next Mutation, so it’s not really a new concept. Despite the way many of the fans reacted, I actually liked Venus de Milo so it was nice to see someone giving a turtle lady another shot. I hoped this new one would have better luck than the last one did, but that was about the extent of my thoughts on the matter.

Then I saw her and I was like, okay... She’s actually kind of badass...

And I approve of giving her a body shape that isn’t any different from the guy turtles. Not that I hated Venus‘ more feminine body shape or anything... But portraying her as just another Ninja Turtle instead of feeling a need to draw attention to the fact that she’s a woman every single time you look at her is a nice change of pace.

This got me interested enough to look into the comic she’s appearing in and to my surprise I learned that the comic is being written by Kevin Eastman, one of the original two creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (The better of the two if you ask me.) Now suddenly I’m really interested... A new Ninja Turtles comic book by Eastman himself? Without Laird there to interfere with all of his bullshit...? Okay, that settled it. I was going to have to give this a look.

So I did... And not only have I found the comic to be surprisingly good... but then I get to see our new turtle, Jennika (Jenny) and see what she’s like, and... oh god... Not only is she a tough, smart, capable Ninja Turtle, but she’s also an ex-con who’s done time in prison and completely hilarious? And oh god... she’s self conscious of the way she looks...? That’s something I can relate to heavily.

Okay... You are already making me love this character far too much... I mean, the only thing left that you could possibly do to make her any better would be to have her come out a queer.

Okay and then it fucking happens!

You made a tough, badass, turtle lady with a shady past who looks like a guy, is self conscious about how she looks, dresses punk, is humorous without being over the top about it, AND she’s bisexual? It’s like... Did someone tell Eastman I stopped being a hardcore fan? Did he sit down and deliberately write a character I could relate to on nearly every level just to get me back? Because that’s what it feels like right now... I mean, she’s even dating a hot pig girl, which is very much to my tastes...

Eastman may not realize this was written for me, but... this was fucking written for me...

So I guess I’m back in the Ninja Turtle fandom again... *Shrugs*

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autisticcassandracain · 3 years

Note

🔥 kori

dickkory sucks but not for any of the reasons dickkory haters say it sucks. most dickkory hate is literally just ppl hating on kori disguised as a 'personal opinion' on ships and usually those opinions make it extremely obvious that they never bothered to like, actually read The New Teen Titans lmao. 'dickkory was mostly sexual' is especially a terrible take because not only is it blatantly untrue, it's also based in the slut-shaming Kori has received over the years for being sexually open, and the mischaracterization she's received bc people saw an opportunity to reduce a female character to a sex object with a thin veil of plausible deniability in the form of 'characterization' and took it.

Most arguments against dickkory I've seen focus on the idea that Kori didn't offer Dick much, which is HILARIOUS because you have a MUCH better argument for the reverse, which is exactly what I will now proceed to argue.

got long, is under the cut, you know the drill. TL;DR Kori and Dick's relationship was badly built up, Kori provides more emotional support for Dick than Dick provides for Kori, Kori was more important to Dick's development than Dick was to Kori, and I don't think it's ever even been stated why Kori likes Dick.

Also donnakory was built up way better than dickkory and I'd argue Donna has had more of an influence on Kori than Dick ever did. That last one isn't explained in-depth it's just important to me that you know this.

Dick and Kori barely interacted prior to getting together, and yet we were supposed to believe this narrative that Dick was definitely in love with Kori and just couldn't admit it. I literally did a double take the first time Kori mused to herself about being confused Dick 'wouldn't admit to being in love with her' like I'm sorry WHEN did that get established??? I'm too aro for 'love at first sight' bullshit you have to actually make them interact or I won't buy it. This lack of build-up was my first problem with dickkory, but I was willing to ignore it if the actual relationship appealed to me.

It didn't. Dick and Kori's relationship is marked by a pattern of what, to me, is incompatibility. Dick is the type of person who, when stresses, lashes out at others and pushes them away. He's seen doing this multiple times to Kori in The New Teen Titans, most notably shortly after they got together when he was stressed due to having too much on his plate, and in the Return to Tamaran/Karras/Marriage arc. Kori consistently reacts to this behavior by blaming herself for it. The first time, she comes to Donna to ask her if she's done anything wrong, after which Donna reassures her that Dick's just Like That, and Kori resolves to be as supportive as she can.

The second time bothers me much more; on Tamaran, Dick is so mean to her she ends up having a full-on breakdown, which she first seeks support for from Joey, but later, she just stays depressed until she can return to Earth. While Dick's behaviour was influenced by his brainwashing, we never get confirmation of how much of it was influenced, and on top of that, the comic repeatedly and consistently frames Kori as having 'hurt Dick' during this arc afterwards, making her say this repeatedly, while never refuting it or addressing the ways Dick has harmed Kori during this arc.

While Dick did man up and apologize in both circumstances (I think the second apology was lacking, but the first was quite good), it still established a pattern that I find uncomfortable. Dick is rude to Kori, Kori takes it personally and wonders what she's done wrong, Kori tries to talk it out with Dick, Dick snaps at her and pushes her away, but eventually realizes he's been mean and apologizes. What bothers me the most in this pattern is the part where Kori consistently blames herself for Dick's behaviour, and assumes she's done something wrong to make him behave this way. Every time this came up in the comics, it made me deeply uncomfortable, because I've seen enough real-life relationships with a very similar dynamic to this that were deeply unhealthy to make this set off all my alarm bells.

I want to stress that I don't think dickkory is actually unhealthy in canon, but it reminds me of enough unhealthy relationships I've known for me to be personally uncomfortable with it.

That's not the only part that reminds me of those relationships: I feel like Dick is getting way more out of this relationship than Kori. Kori is consistently shown to support Dick when he goes through tough situations, even when Dick responds by trying to push her away or being rude to her. Similarly, Dick has stated that Kori was the one who helped him open up about his emotions, and has had a tremendous positive effect on his character development as a result; he even goes so far as to name her one of the elements of his Nightwing identity. Kori pushes Dick to explore new areas of himself, and supports him when he has problems.

Dick, by contrast.... doesn't really do this with Kori. When Kori needed support, Dick was consistently either absent or actually rude to her. Again, this is most prominent during the Karras arc; during a time when Kori desperately needed someone to support her, Dick was only concerned with his own hurt feelings. And again, yes, he was brainwashed during this, but again, we never actually got confirmation on how much of this behaviour was due to brainwashing, and much of the writing afterwards framed Kori was the one in the wrong here, so my point stands. This was the singular most important moment Kori needed support, and Dick blew it, and the narrative basically let him off the hook for it.

The only time I can think of when Dick supported Kori in non-battle related situations was right after the Wildebeest arc in New Titans, but that was also the start of Kori's character massacre for the break up arc, so I don't exactly have fond memories of that. I'm sure there's been more minor moments where he's supported her that I'm forgetting, but I shouldn't have to have this much trouble coming up with times Dick has emotionally supported Kori.

Furthermore, Dick hasn't had a similar effect on Kori's character development to Kori's effect on Dick. While Kori did develop while she was with Dick, this wasn't really due to Dick. Her short-lived change of heart about the morality of murder was due to her personal experiences, and while Dick probably aided in this decision, so did Donna and even the rest of the Titans. It was not something that was uniquely Dick, the way Dick opening up about his emotions was uniquely Kori. Her distancing herself from Tamaran and embracing Earth was also not uniquely Dick, and was in fact a realization that mostly took place in his absence. Other parts of her character development follow this pattern.

I'm not saying Dick has had no effect on Kori's character progression, but he wasn't instrumental in it the way Kori was instrumental in his. Kori's character would've likely progressed in an extremely similar fashion even without him, and I can't say the same for Dick. If anyone influenced Kori's development in a similar way Dick influenced Kori's, it was Donna, who was the one to introduce her to Earth culture, supported her through various tough times and insecurities, helped her find a job (albeit it on accident) and frequently worked with her later, etc. etc. And even then, I don't think Donna's effect on Kori was quite as dramatic as Kori's effect on Dick.

The final nail in the coffin for any interest I may have had in dickkory is the fact that I, honest to god, have no idea why Kori likes Dick. I don't. Dick has several internal monologues about how much he loves Kori for her passion, her drive, her openness, and the way she pushes him to explore new parts of himself and open up, but Kori... doesn't really do the same for Dick. I can make guesses as to why I think Kori likes Dick, even fairly educated ones (I think Kori likes Dick at least in part because his intellectual approach to life is new and interesting to her, for example), but they've never stated it explicitly the way they've stated what Kori likes about Dick. And for a series that'll state practically everything explicitly if it can, up to and including what's happening on the panel right now, this is very weird to me.

Any of these problems, isolated, I could've gotten past; even a two of these problems I could've probably ignored. Three would've been pushing it, but all of them? No chance. Any good will I had towards the relationship was buried with the Karras arc, and then shot in the head for good measure when they continuously talked about it as if Kori was the one at fault there.

All of these problems combined make it very clear to me that Kori was not the primary concern in this relationship. Kori was invented as a love interest for Dick, and it shows. This entire relationship is about what it does for Dick, how it helps Dick. The only thing Kori gets out of it, at least to me, is the happiness she gets from being in love, and frankly, she could get that with literally any other character.

The fact that people keep reducing her character to this relationship also infuriates me and makes me even less inclined to like it, especially when they can't even bother to remember Kori was the one who broke up with Dick and instead treat Kori as the one who was left heartbroken and has never gotten over it, while Dick gets to move on with his life and other love interests.

I think this relationship had potential; I think their contrasting personalities could've made for an interesting relationship, and I've enjoyed some isolated moments and fandom portrayals of them before. But after reading The New Teen Titans, I just do not understand why so many Kori fans like this relationship so much. I went into the series neutral on the relationship but hopeful about being won over, to straight-up hating it.

Also that one time they used a relationship between a man who was about to shoot his wife for cheating on him as a direct and obvious parallel to dickkory was SO GODDAMN AWFUL. why the hell did they think that was a good idea. why.

#my posts #koriand'r #dick grayson #anti-dickkory

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twin-books · 2 years

Note

Felix Agreste

First impression TLDR; I'm gonna put this at the start in case someone doesn't want to read all of that below. Basically I thought he was a bit of a jerk, I liked Adrien more, than I got educated on who Felix actually was. <3 Bare with me here... How I found out Felix existed was when I was messaging my sister through Whatsapp and planned to send her a Chat Noir gif because at the time she still liked the freaking show. She dropped it before season 2 came out. XD Anyway, I found a gif of Felix turning into Chat Noir from the PV and I was like... "Wow, that's a really good fan made gif though I'm not sure I'm a fan of the character..." So I sent it to my sister and she was like, "How do you know that is fan made? Tons of things have different forms of media. Maybe it really does have an anime?" And I was like... Huh... So I looked up miraculous anime in DeviantART (because I used DeviantART a lot at the time), figuring that if it was a thing there would probably be a lot of fan art of it? (I was young and stupid. XD) So I did find some fanart of Felix and immediately went into the comments looking for info on who the freak this guy was. One person did that really annoying thing people do on other peoples' art post where they go, "This is good art but..." -.- Anyway, they said Felix was a concept version of Adrien and he sucked, went into something about Felix using Ladybug and never actually caring for her, just wanted to make her kiss him so he could break a curse and that he would often screw with Marinette and give her bad luck. So my first thought was, "Wow, if he really is like that, I like Adrien way more." But, having been in the Sonic fandom, I am very much aware fans tend to let their opinions be fact. So I looked it up and no matter how hard I looked I just couldn't find much on Felix. I have now learned how to look things up better (hence my nearly exploding file of miraculous concepts) but at the time I didn't care too much so I probably didn't look as hard as I think I did. I found something about a curse but nothing about him trying to steal a kiss from her and also that he was originally supposed to play mean tricks on Marinette and that was it... So my impression was basically... "Okay? I found nothing but he doesn't look particularly nice so... I prefer Adrien over him." And then I moved on. Until I found a YouTube video of one of @edorazzi's Twin AU pieces and eventually messaged her about Felix only to be invited to the PV Discord server where I finally actually learned things.

Impression now Felix reminds me of my dad. There just aren't many characters who remind me of my dad. It's a hard character to find, I suppose, since in fiction a character like my dad may seem unrealistic or something. But because of this I very much love him. He's also just a refreshing kind of character for miraculous since there's basically no other character in miraculous like him except maybe Kagami. I wished we would have gotten the tall, fluffy hair, blue eyes Felix in the show but considering how Felix Graham de Vanily was introduced... I'm glad he didn't make it in the show. I also fell in love with his design because, fun fact, my first impression of his design was that he was ugly and this is like a common theme with miraculous dudes. I think they are like hideous and then suddenly I think they look cute and wonder how on earth I thought they were ugly? He's insanely fun to write. I love writing Felix in fan fics. Just, whenever I think of Felix it makes me happy and brings a warm feeling of mystery and nostalgia. I also just love miraculous concepts in general. So much, I had planned to make a comic on the in between concept of miraculous (between the PV and the CGI show we have now) with a character like Felix in it. Probably another reason for the nostalgia as well as all my lovely friends in the PV server. <3

Favorite moment My favorite moment of Felix? Well, since Felix Agreste usually refers to PV Felix I will have to pick from the PV and/or other concepts... And personally my favorite moments were Felix walking away from Bridgette when they seemingly first met, him on the bench as she tries to ask him to some kind of show, and him as Chat up on the roof with Ladybug when the Butterfly's blimp rises. I did a few because the moments are just so small. :' D I liked him walking away because I like the feeling it gives off where he feels unsure, weird, but determined and not willing to put up with nonsense. I liked when he was sitting on the bench and Bridgette was offering tickets because firstly, it proved the whole thing wrong that Felix just kept screwing her over any chance he got, and also because he seemed to turn her down rather nicely. Like, most people would probably argue against this but for a character like Felix and Kagami getting straight to the point and being blunt but speaking with no ill feelings in their voice is a good way to turn someone down. He definitely didn't look like he did it because he wanted to hurt her. It looked like he turned her down because he didn't feel the same and would rather not lead her on. I really liked that. : ) Plus, it was more evidence Felix liked reading so any little crumbs of character I can get I will take. XD I liked the moment of him as Chat on the roof with LB because not only was it gorgeous despite being a dangerous scenario, it showed how different he and LB were from their CGI counterparts. Usually Adrien and Marinette would just charge right in and come up with a plan in the middle of the fight but here Felix!Chat and Bribug wait. They patiently wait and feel content despite the horror in front of them. And they look to each other showing trust and confidence that whatever this is... they will face it together. It also kind of showed that Felix is a lot calmer as Chat than Adrien is which I much prefer for Felix. XD

Idea for a story Hmm... I've had a few ideas of stories with Felix. Quite a bit, actually. But this refers to an idea and quite a bit of them I have typed out in some form so... an idea... hmm... I guess, I did have this idea of Felix where he was just a background character in the show originally but ends up stumbling into the biggest battle of Paris yet where some of the heroes die and then he stumbles across Luka and Sass where Sass uses Second Chance but because the amount of things that needed to be reset was so big the resulting fall back with Sass using it is that the universe kind of resets and they're in an alternate reality but because Luka and Felix were so close they remember everything from the past universe. It results in Luka locking eyes with Felix, knowing he knows, and chasing him down the street until they both realize this isn't their same reality. With Luka distracted, Felix flees and tries to live a normal life despite everything is slightly different but he pushes forward while Luka becomes hopeless until he finally spots Felix again and chases him into a corner so he can finally ask, "You remember it too, don't you?" It was just a cool idea I had but I don't know if I would do anything with it. XD

Unpopular opinion I guess this is unpopular?? But I don't really like the idea of Felix being as silly as Adrien is in Chat form... I personally just don't find it too fitting. I get him being a tad more outgoing but unlike Adrien, I feel Felix would act a bit more like himself as Chat because, also unlike Adrien, he didn't seem to want to be a superhero.

Favorite relationship Brilix all the freaking way! I love them so much! I actually prefer them over the canon Love Square, to be honest. I just find their relationship calmer and nicer... They're just so cute! And both of them are so fun to write! I am also a multi-shipper so I have way more ships with Felix. I am obsessed. Send help. XD (And if you mean like other kinds of relationships? Well read the next one because that’s my favorite “friendship” with Felix. XD)

Favorite headcanon My favorite headcanon about Felix? Hmm... Well I think the headcanon of the concept character Claude and Felix being the very definition of frenemies. XD Firstly, I adore Claude. Secondly, because it's hilarious and it feels so true. XD Thank you for the ask! <3 Please send me another character.<3

#felix agreste #ask me anything #miraculous ladybug #chat noir #PV Felix #ask meme #brilix #Man I wish he was real #thank you for the ask!

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bloodbending222 · 4 years

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Could you maybe do a korra x reader where both of them are super obvious about the fact that they like each other, so literally everyone knows except them, then Bolin (haha that just autocorrected to bologna) convinces Korra to finally ask the reader out and it's very fluff? THANK YOOOOOOOUUUUUU.

B O L O G N A

✰ fandom: The Legend of Korra

✰ pairings: Korra x reader

✰ word count: 2k

✰ warning(s): alcohol consumption, tiny steaminess at the end, language

✰ author’s note: this was a lot of fun to do, i thought writing Korra would be a bit challenging for me, but i had a blast writing this! thank you for the request, anon! i really hope you like it :) ♡

please read my rules!!

The buzzer for your front door rang again as you fixed your hair in the mirror for the third time, your small apartment filling with its shrill sound. He was holding the button down this time. You hated to keep your friend waiting in the cold, but he was the one who opted to wait for you outside rather than coming in.

The same nervous phrase played in your mind again, Korra’s gonna be at the party.

Groaning, you walked over to your callbox and held down the talk button, “I’m getting my boots on!”

When you opened the front door to your apartment, you were greeted with a very cold gust of wind and a grumpy expression from Bolin. He was shivering, cradling the bottle of cactus juice he brought along as a party favor. He watched you walk out in front of him and started after you. Fluffy snowflakes floated around the two of you in the winter air.

“It’s so cold! How long does it take you to get ready for a party?!”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t take a century to make yourself look good either, Mr. Hero of the South,” you teased as he caught up with you.

Bolin was quick to defend his fictional persona, puffing out his chest dramatically, “Hey, don’t bring Nuktuk into this. He’s only ever fashionably late for everything. You’re just late now because you know that Korra’s gonna be there.”

Bolin’s statement made your face flush bright red. You wound up your open palm and playfully smacked your friend in the arm, which made him laugh.

“Hey! It’s not my fault you make it so obvious, with the way the two of you are always sitting so close together. You think you’re slick when you stare at her while she’s not paying attention, too. It’s kind of adorable,” Bolin snickered, “But Asami, Mako, and I can see right through you, [Y/n].”

You looked down at your boots as they tamped down on the fallen snow with every step. You knew Bolin was right. You were infatuated with Korra from the beginning. You recalled the day that Bolin introduced you to each other. He’d introduced her as the Avatar, and she laughed and said, “Unlike Bolin here, I’m not one for formalities. Just call me Korra.”

Her smile was so warm. You felt enchanted by her presence, hesitating to shake her hand when she held it out to you. You remember looking at her and asking yourself, how could someone be so gorgeous?

“You would make a cute couple.”

Bolin’s remark snapped you back into the moment, “What? No way, she’s not into me.”

There was a pause between you two. Bolin gave you a look that said, You’re so full of shit and you know it.

“Besides,” You stuttered, “even if she did...she’s too busy for a relationship. She has more important things to worry about.”

The two of you rounded the corner and Bolin remarked as you came to a stop at Asami’s apartment building, “[Y/n], my friend, nothing’s more important than looove.”

You rolled your eyes and Bolin pressed the buzzer marked SATO.

“Who is it?” Asami’s voice inquired over the crackling speaker.

“Republic City Police,” Bolin said in a tough-guy voice, “If you don’t let us in, you’re under arrest.”

“Right away, officers,” Asami replied, and you heard Korra’s laughter in the background. You swore your heart skipped a beat.

The door buzzed and you let yourselves in, climbing the stairs up to Asami’s unit. She opened the door and was met with a bear-hug from Bolin. In the living room, you saw Korra turn around and beam at you. Mako waved at the two of you with a pleased, “Hey, guys,” as he sat on the couch.

Before you could take off your coat, Korra walked over and embraced you. You smiled and hugged her back, blushing at your newfound knowledge that your entire friend group somewhat knew about your feelings for her.

“I’m so happy that you’re here, [Y/n]. Asami made snacks, we’ve got games,” she pulled away from the hug and looked at you inquisitively, “How’ve you been? You look great.”

You got a little flustered at Korra’s compliment paired with the physical touch she was giving you so openly. She wasn’t wearing her normal attire; she had on dark jeans and a blue cardigan sweater with a white halter top underneath. When you looked at her eyes, you noticed she had mascara on.

Why do you have to be so pretty? You wanted to say.

“I should be saying that to you, Korra. I like your outfit.”

Not too obvious, [Y/n].

As the two of you finally broke from your hug, Bolin handed Asami the bottle he brought and joined Mako in the living room. Asami offered you a drink, and you accepted. She poured glasses for everyone and soon all five of you were huddled together around the coffee table in the living room, snacking and chatting amongst each other.

Korra sat down next to you on the floor, while Asami, Mako, and Bolin shared the couch. Asami set up a couple of games for you all to play, and Bolin insisted that you all have a Pai Sho tournament. His proposition made you roll your eyes at his predictability, knowing that he had a vendetta against Asami for being so much better than him.

As you watched your friends go back and forth, Korra went to scoot a little closer to you, making your shoulders touch. You felt the skin on your arm vibrate under the soft fabric of her sweater. You could smell the perfume she was wearing; subtle, but so pleasant. You caught yourself stealing glances at her a couple of times and remembered Bolin teasing you about it earlier in the night. You didn’t care if you would hear it from him again, though. You were just happy to be so close to her.

Asami crushed both Bolin and Mako at their rounds of Pai Sho. They had decided midway to make it a drinking game, Asami being closer to sober than anyone else in the room. Mako sunk into the couch and admitted his defeat, empty glass in hand. Bolin was comically shouting about how Asami had cheated in some far-off way. She reveled in her victory.

There was a beat of silence before Mako slowly looked at you and Korra, asking, “You two gonna play at all tonight?”

You and Korra both looked up at the same time, snapped back into the present moment. The both of you stuttered at the same time something to the effect of, “Oh, no, its okay,” and, “We just want to watch you guys play.”

Bolin couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle, and you shot a glare at him. He put his hands up innocently and gave you the same look that he did during your conversation earlier.

Korra suddenly stood up, smiling, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Why don’t we find a game to play that we’re all good at while I’m gone, okay?”

As she left, she brushed her hand against your shoulder blade, making you shiver. You wondered if it was on purpose.

Korra could hear the group talking outside of the bathroom. As she opened the door to return to the group, she jumped as Bolin was waiting right outside, leaning against the wall. He stared at her with a smirk across his lips.

“Jeez, you scared me. What’s that look for?”

“Oh, no reason,” Bolin said sarcastically, cracking his knuckles, “It’s just that you were taking such a long time in the bathroom, I wanted to check on my good ‘ole pal Korra.” He threw his arm around her and squeezed, “Hey, so you like [Y/n], right? Like, you wanna be their girlfriend?”

Korra gave him a poorly-faked look of shock, blushing, “What are you talking about?”

Bolin didn’t respond. He just stared blankly at her.

“I mean, I really like hanging out with them, and they’re really nice, and,” She stopped herself, stuttering now, “We’re just really good friends!”

“Yeah, okay, I believe you. Listen, you should ask them out.”

Korra was taken aback, “You really think they’re gonna--”

“Yes, Korra. I do,” Bolin pointed a thumb toward the open guest bedroom door next to him, “Now, I’m gonna call [Y/n] over and you can go confess your undying love for them in there, okay?”

“Bolin, I’m not--”

“[Y/n], Korra needs you for something!”

You perked up at the sound of Bolin calling you from down the hallway. Breaking your conversation with Mako and Asami, you walked over to see Korra standing in the doorway of the bathroom and Bolin wearing the same stupid smirk again. You looked at Korra and smiled.

“Hey, Korra, what’s up? Everything okay?”

Bolin laughed, “It’s about to be!”

You scoffed at him as he marched triumphantly back to the living room, cackling with pride the entire way.

He left you all alone. With Korra.

“What are we gonna do with him?” You asked, and Korra chuckled.

“I’ve been wondering that for years.”

The two of you shared a laugh, and then her eyes met yours. And there that feeling was again. With every look you shared with her, you felt like your heart was going to burst out of your chest.

But this time you realized that Korra was a little flustered too. Her cheeks grew pink and she broke eye contact, but only for a second before looking back at you and taking your hand.

“Um, want to just...sit and talk for a minute?”

Her hand was soft, which you were aware of already. You were obviously used to being a little touchy with each other, but when you got brave, sometimes you’d hold out your hand to her, palm up, and she’d take it in hers. You didn’t know exactly why you did it in the moment, but whenever you did, it just felt right. It felt so right to be holding her hand in yours.

All you could do was nod. She led you to the bedroom and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. The two of you sat down, Korra sitting cross-legged and facing you. She let out a long, deep sigh. You watched her as she searched her mind for the right words to say. She was so cute when she was concentrating.

She finally spoke, “I’m so happy that you came out tonight. There’s something that I really need to tell you.”

“Is everything alright?” You got a little self-conscious, “Was I being too touchy?”

“No, of course not!” Korra shook her head frantically and held both of your hands in hers, “You could never make me uncomfortable like that. I really love being around you, [Y/n].”

You smiled and adjusted yourself to come face-to-face with her, “I love spending time with you, too, Korra.”

She paused to find her words again. There was a beat between you two before she broke the silence.

“I really, really like you, [Y/n]. You make me feel so happy in a way that no one else has made me feel before...” She swallowed her fears and looked at you intently, “Do you want to go out with me?”

You felt fireworks go off in your chest. All of the anxieties you were feeling from earlier felt like they dissipated in that moment. You didn’t know how long you were waiting for this moment to come.

“Yes,” you said, leaving toward her almost on instinct, “Of course I do.”

Korra gave you the biggest smile you’d ever seen on her. She let go of your hands to wrap her arms around you and pull you close to her. You made eye contact again, but only for a moment before she leaned in and kissed you. You were in shock. You had waited for this moment to come for so long, and now it was finally happening. You returned the kiss to her and wrapped your arms around her shoulders. You felt like you could never be close enough to her.

You could really smell her perfume now. You reveled in the feeling of finally being able to kiss her like this, unafraid to conceal your feelings for her any longer. Her lips were soft against yours, and despite the countless times that you imagined this moment to happen, you never could have conceptualized just how euphoric it actually would be.

Eventually, the sound of your friend group’s laughter echoed into the guest bedroom, and you were broken from your trance.

We’re still at the party, you remembered.

Unaware of how much time had passed, you pulled away, realizing that Korra somehow ended up practically on top of you. Brought back to the present, the two of you slowly sat back up and gazed at one another.

“We should, uh, probably get back out there,” said Korra, breathless at the intensity of the moment you just shared.

You nodded in agreement and stood up with her. She took your hand in hers and squeezed as the both of you walked out together. She looked proud, and you felt so happy, so relieved.

As the two of you returned, Bolin threw his hands up and hollered, “Oh-ho, look which lucky couple decided to join us! How polite of you two!”

Asami laughed. You blushed, and Korra replied with gusto, “Oh, pardon me! Did we miss watching you lose another round of Pai Sho?”

“Alright, lovebirds,” said Mako, equally as entertained as his little brother, “Now that that’s taken care of, get your sorry asses over here. We have a tournament to finish.”

#korra #ask #anon #korra x reader #legend of korra x reader #tlok x reader #korra x you #tlok x you #legend of korra x you #tlok #the legend of korra #tlok fanfic #tlok reader insert

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