#also I strongly recommend reading the spider's thread

[kirisaki-daichi-scenarios]

Hara being cringy? Seven headcanons. One for every day of the week so I can survive these messed up times. Thank you. 🙏

On Monday, Hara’s already done with school, so he drags Yamazaki with him to go buy a maid costume. He wears the maid costume later that evening - motivation to get through his homework - as he reenacts Akutagawa’s ‘the Spider’s Thread’ in his room. Towards the end of the story, when he collapses to the floor dramatically, his younger brother lets out a cough. The boy has been watching Hara from the doorway for the last 5 minutes. There is silence, and neither of them ever bring it up again.

On Tuesday, Hara steals Furuhashi’s bento - it’s supposed to be a joke, but he drops it, and all of Furuhashi’s hard work is ruined. Hara spends the rest of lunch hiding from an increasingly pissed Furuhashi, until, eventually, Hanamiya catches him and forces him to stand still whilst Furuhashi scolds him. Furuhashi very much deserves to scold him. In the excitement, Hara has somehow eaten half of his teammates lunch too.

On Wednesday, to emphasise how much he hates this class, and enchanted by the concept of having absolutely no self preservation, Hara slams his head down on his desk - making his teacher and all his classmates stare at him (apart from Yamazaki who looks away in shame). Hara has a nosebleed for the rest of the lesson. Seto beside him punches him in the stomach when some of the blood gets on his notebook.

On Thursday, practice is too much for Hara. When it’s over, he lies down on the changing room’s floor and refuses to move. No one wants to give him a piggyback home, though all the boy’s whining irritates Hanamiya enough that the captain says he’ll drag Hara to the station - quite literally. He’s true to his word, pulling along Hara down campus, even as the boy complains that Hanamiya’s steel grip is going to rip the skin off his wrist. It’s only when they reach the school gates, that they realise 4 teachers have been watching them this whole time. Both boys freeze, then scammer off, and, if the teacher’s hadn’t heard Hara’s whining, they definitely hear Hanamiya yell that he’s going to kill this fuck.

On Friday, the team goes to a basketball match. They win (obviously), and Hara gets a little drunk (less because of the win, more because his older brother’s coming over with his girlfriend, and Hara can’t stand either of them nor the formal dinner sober). In the excitement, Hara kisses Matsumoto on the cheek, when the centre tells him he played well. Everyone laughs, except Matsumoto, who isn’t paid nearly enough to deal with Hara, and who promptly pours the rest of his water bottle’s contents on Hara. Hara says something about ‘you always make me wet’. Matsumoto gets off the coach there and then, and hasn’t complimented Hara since.

#is this hara's cringy moments or just hara annoying the shit out of his teammates #also I strongly recommend reading the spider's thread #Akutagawa's a good writer #and it's really funny imagining hara as the mc #hara kazuya #kirisaki daiichi #kirisaki daichi scenarios #furuhashi kojiro #furuhashi koujirou #hanamiya makoto #seto kentarou #seto kentaro #yamazaki hiroshi #matsumoto itsuki #hcs #headcanons #imagines #scenarios #team interactions

[lady-of-disdain]

Does Fiction Lead to Grooming, and The Effect of a Relationship Like Sessrin on a Child Audience.

Ok, so I posted a response on a lengthy thread some time ago that I wanted to update some of my points on, and also repost to be more easily visible since that post ended up disappearing due to some shenanigans.

I also wanted to update this argument, because I’ve started seeing some pro-shippers argue that even if sessrin became canon the romantic portrayal of this relationship wouldn’t affect child viewers. I posit that this is untrue. The very nature of the effect children’s cartoons/media has on the views and social behavior of children is still a field with much academic study going on in it. however, the idea that children like to emulate what they see in cartoons, and the notion that positive portrayals of characters and relationships of diversity in cartoons can lead to a higher rate of acceptance among the child audience to these ideals in real life has so far been a very real, and tangibly proven fact.

The original point of this argument was in response to someone’s statement that made a point along the lines that “media does not affect grooming relationships in real life”, and if it did

“it would affect not only the thought processes of the victim, but that of the potential predator as well.”

My response as follows.

The potential predator we are talking about here is a grown-ass-adult. We are talking about a person who is old enough to know right from wrong, and that children/teenagers are off limits because the law says so. Can pornographic materials stoke the fire of pedophilia, and make someone who is only fantasizing about offending actually take the leap and become an offender? Possibly? But I doubt seeing an abusive relationship on GoT is going to be spicy enough to be the tipping point for a potential future groomer. And even if it were, at this point in the adult’s life, it’s a little too late for them to stand up in court and say “your honor, a television show made me do it.”

In this house, we blame the abuser, no one else!

This is the important distinction though: that we can have intelligent discourse over the problems inherent in these kinds of relationships in adult media. Was ‘Lolita’ a book glorifying an adult man’s attraction to an underaged girl, or condemning it? Is ‘Cuties’ a movie about the dangers children face performing provocative dance moves for an audience of adults, or was it created to pander to MAP’s? Would the relationship between Jon and Daenerys really be ok just because the Targaryen’s traditionally married their blood relations, or would it still be wrong because it’s incest?

Children’s media doesn’t have these kind of deep, introspective themes because children’s brains are still growing, and learning, and these kind of messages can become muddled and confused. We are still constantly trying to find out just how much of an effect media has on the views, and thoughts that children develop as they grow.

From the discourse over marketing toys to children in the form of Saturday morning cartoons, to the use of cartoon characters to sell cigarettes, and the very real problem of the portrayal of race and diversity in children's programming, these are ALL points that have been the subject of scientific and psychological study.

A very quick search brought up MANY articles and peer reviewed theses on these subjects:

The American Psychological Association on Advertising and Children

Influence of Cartoon Media Characters on Children's Attention to and Preference for Food and Beverage Products

The Relationship between Cartoon Trade Character Recognition and Attitude toward Product Category in Young Children

Racial and Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Children’s Television Use and Self-Esteem: A Longitudinal Panel Study

Why Diversity in Children’s Media is So Important

A very interesting study I found was on the influence of Western cartoons on children in Kenya, found Here. It’s a 200-page peer-reviewed thesis, so I’ll try to condense it as reasonably as possible. 

The research was performed among primary school children in Kenya who were exposed to the following Western cartoons: ‘Spongebob Squarepants’, ‘Sofia the First’, ‘Lion Guard’, ‘Doc Mc Stuffins’, and ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’. The focus of the study was on the effect of children’s social behavior after viewing those cartoons. As such there were multiple factors considered, everything from the influence of the violence, and language shown, positive messages like friendship and generosity, to views on gender and race.

two of the most startlingly tragic results I read in this study are as follows:

“...a majority of the children preferred white cartoon characters as they have been conditioned to see "white‟ as the norm through the foreign television cartoon programs. This could further explain why the Doc Mc Stuffins was the least popular among the cartoon programs selected for this study as the lead character is dark skinned.”

and

“Having established that a majority of the children preferred white colored cartoon characters, the researcher sought to further establish whether the children would want to have an association with fair skinned children. 56.6% of the children strongly agreed that they would like to make friends with fair skinned children because white cartoon characters are better looking.”

Finally, an excerpt from the conclusion of this thesis:

“The study revealed extensive reliance of children on foreign television cartoons. The study therefore recommends that more local children content especially cartoons need be produced from the developing countries to substitute the current extensive reliance on foreign television cartoons for educational and entertainment purposes by the Kenyan children. There is urgent need for the producers to focus on content that will amplify children’s morals and values such as honesty, generosity, and respect among others; content that will help them appreciate their cultures and the diversity that comes with it.”

So what does all of this have to do with Yashahime and the portrayal of a romantic relationship between Sesshomaru and Rin?

Besides just affecting their views on the things we’ve already discussed, there is also a discernable influence children’s media can have on their views of romantic relationships.

There is a really interesting peer reviewed thesis I found here about the effect Disney movies have on children’s views of romance.

The paper describes interviews they had with children where they would show the children pictures of iconic Disney princes and princesses and would be asked three questions: Have you seen this movie? Are these two people in love? What does being in love mean? The thesis conclusion ended as follows:

“Consequently, this research illustrates the modernization of the oral tradition of folklore from moral messages of honor and duty meant to teach the lessons that will guide children into adult hood, to the Disney formula of love at first sight leading to romantic love. The augmentation of folklore tales in this way produces a new scope of inquiry to examine the potential influence and consequences Disney films have to inform children’s understanding of love relationships. The importance of this study is that it has found that children are creating meanings when exposed to romantically themed media and this influential media effects how children create meaning about their social world. This thesis has described the importance of children being affected by this media, how these meanings are identified and internalized and finally how children are expressing ideas of romantic love.”

A much shorter read over here on Bitescience talks about how even young teens can be influenced slightly by romantic media.

Indeed, there are still a lot of other things besides the media they consume that can affect a child’s views on things like material goods, food consumption, race, gender, sexual orientation, and romance. These views can and do change and grow as the child ages into adulthood, but people who prey on children do everything they can to avoid their targets from growing out of harmful views that benefit the predator’s goals. While many of us might have grown up with relationships like sessrin in media we consumed and learned after we grew older the wrongness of this kind of relationship dynamic, children, and teenagers who have not grown into this knowledge yet are targets for predators. So why do we want to make the predators work easier by spoon-feeding this kind of relationship dynamic to young people?

To close things off here I want to use a personal example. I want to show everyone my very first OTP:

This is Goliath and Elisa from Gargoyles. They are cute, and I fell in love with them as a wee little child of just 9 years old, and I still love them to this very day.

Are they the reason that these days I see creatures like this:

in movies and shows, and go all heart eyes?

I don’t know, maybe? Maybe not. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a connection to one of my earliest remembered favorite TV romantic relationships, and this weird obsession I have today lol.

#anti sessrin #anti rinsess #yashahime #inuyasha #antisessrin #hanyo no yashahime #yashahime: princess half-demon #tw grooming

[otdderamin]

Transcript: Wednesday Club Ep19: Love is Love

Looking for some good Queer content? The best Wednesday Club was Episode 19: Love is Love! with Marc Andreyko. They talked about the Love is Love anthology made in memory of the Pulse shooting and talked about the history of queer representation in comics.

This is also the episode where Taliesin and Amy came out as bi. It was so soft and empathetic and empowering the whole way through that I think it gave them a push of confidence to say it.

Interesting history, they pulled this VOD after this aired and edited out that coming out. I suspect someone felt they got caught up in the moment and weren't actually sure they did want that out there. But word spread anyway and a few weeks later it was quietly restored.

The only depressing thing about this episode is how hopeful they were for the future and how much everything's gone to shit in the two years since it came out.

Official Twitch VOD, Bootlegged YouTube VOD

 If you can handle the sorrow, I really can't recommend "Love is Love" enough. It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. A lot of it is heartbreaking, but there are also a lot of uplifting pieces about pride and joy and love, and those were so special.

 This episode is so fascinating because there's are dozens and dozens of little ways Taliesin's subtext was "I'm queer," but it was such a surprise for that subtext to be text at the end. I think it's greatly affected how I read his queer coding in acting.

Reading Taliesin himself in this episode of Wednesday Club is a major reason why I feel somewhat confident in my analysis about the queer subtext he shows in Caduceus (and Percy). He's very deliberate about his subtext, I think the joke is always that it's genuine.

"Well, those are then the Schrodinger's representations which are 'Are they? Aren't they? We're not going to say.' [Stage whisper] But they are."

I think about this quote all the time. What he says sideways is deliberate, and something he personally delights in reading into. This is, after all, him playing out people in the way he would interact, not really for other people. We don't ask straight people to tell us they're straight, they just show it and we all assume it's true. I strongly suspect that's a freedom Taliesin looks for in queer portrayal.

One of the dynamics going on here that's SO INTERESTING is how apparent the age gap is between Marc and Taliesin and Amy. I don't know Amy's age, but I'd guess she's a decade younger. Marc and Taliesin are so much more okay with clunky, subtext, and or tragic representation.

Partly this is just a difference of Taliesin liking sad stories & Amy liking happy ones, but the difference is so much more magnified in this episode. Her standards for what makes good representation are noticeably higher, I'd guess partly because she grew up in a better world.

 One of the books they mentioned is "My Brother's Husband" by Gengoroh Tagame. there are two volumes and it's such an outstandingly soft story. One of the best comics I've ever read. Yaichi and his daughter Kana get a visit from Mike, his brother's husband, after his brother died. It's about Yaichi trying to get over his homophobia and teach Kana to be a better, more accepting person than he was. Kana just accepts Mike straight away and thinks he's amazing.

 Here is a selection of comic picks from the episode (by no means all of them). Here's Amy's crowdsourced queer comics recommendation thread, which is full of excellent reads, some of which they talked about.

 4:45 Marc: "I'm glad [the Pulse shooter] is dead because he did a horrible, unforgivable thing, but part of me wishes someone had been there to give him a hug, you know?"

[I've been thinking about this sentiment and grace for two years.]

 10:54 Marc: "We need to hold our government responsible with the same passion we do when Marvel has Spider-Man's costume wrong in an issue."

 0:16:08 Taliesin: "It is a thing that happens to me occasionally on the internet, and this book brought this back up pretty significantly, and I don't do this all the time 'cause I only have so much emotional energy for a human being, especially, you know, times being what they are. I've only got so much of my brain power before I turn into a quivering mess."

0:16:25 Marc: "I can't wait for the day we can wake up and not be angry."

Taliesin: "I know. I'm so…"

Marc: "I'm so tired of being mad!"

0:16:31 Taliesin: "I take moments every morning, and of course being on the internet you get a lot of- there's hate and trolling that come my way, and a lot of it is nothing I didn't hear in high school, nothing that I'm not use to, you know, I've got a pretty thick skin, and I don't delve into the comments sections of videos or anything like that because I'm, you know, sane. But every now and then some body gets through and I just kind of want to have a moment of, like, I wish- and I want to test the theory that if I just find this person, I grab them for a second, and like, "Dude, are you alright? Like, do you need therapy because I'm in therapy and it's fucking great, and what can I-" I feel like, "When was the last time anyone asked you if you're just okay, if you need something 'cause, like, what the fuck, man?"

…

0:17:18 Taliesin: "I wish I had the energy for all these kids. I mean, like, it's so- and in real life I can do this, and I've had those moments in real life where you see someone losing their shit and you're like, 'Do you just need a fucking drink and someone to listen to you talk about your shit and not tell you that you're being, like-'"

Amy: "Or fewer drinks."

Taliesin: "I mean, like, often times just sit down, and I promise I'm not going to make fun of you, I'm not going to tell you you're being weak, tell me, like, what, man, what hurts?"

 0:17:59 Marc: "I don't think most people are evil. I think that there's a percentage of people that occupy the White House that are pure evil…"

Taliesin: "I've had a couple roommates that I'm not even making a joke that are definitely into that spectrum, but most people are just lonely and sad."

Marc: "Well, most people want to live their life, be happy, and be left alone, and I think for me it all boils down to education is the key because when you have- when you're not educated, you're easily scared and when you're easily scared you look for scape goats. It's what one political party has been making their hay on for a number of years."

 31:27 Marc: "We're all the same. We come up with things as a species to divide us when we're actually 99% the same. And we just let that 1% get in the way of everything."

 36:01 Taliesin: "I started to figure out that this was the beginning of a process. And I was starting to notice, 'This is going to lead to the types of characters I want to see in my fiction. And I started breaking down this formula of there's things that you have to do in the momentum of pop culture to get the kind of characters you want. And this was one of the thing that you have to do. And I broke it down to metaphorical representation with books like the X-Men where there are no—there were almost no gay characters in the X-Men." Marc Andreyko: "Or Peppermint Patty, or Schroder."

Taliesin: "Well, those are then the Schrodinger's representations which are 'Are they? Aren't they? We're not going to say.' [Stage whisper] But they are.

"But we have the metaphorical, we have the Schrodinger, we hate the stereotypes, which are the these are the things people think they know about these people."

Marc: "The gay hairdresser, the black drug dealer…"

Taliesin: "Then you have the buddyism, which is you have the established characters going, 'Some of my best friends.' And then we can just have a character where this is part of the tapestry. Once we've gone through all of this stuff so that everybody has gotten it out of their system, we've kind of sifted the pop culture to the point that now you can just do it."

Marc: "But that's not just limited to LGBT."

Taliesin: "No, that's any."

Marc: You look at female characters, you look at African American characters, and what's interesting about the LGBT experience now is it's taken 100 years for Black characters, it's taken 100 years for women characters, the LGBT representation- In my lifetime- if you told me 20 years ago that the Supreme Court would say that marriage is a right, I would have said, 'No way.'"

Taliesin: "No."

Amy: "No way."

Marc: "If you had told me there was going to be a gay-straight alliance at my high school, where my graduating class was 1000 people, 99% of the them I'd say, 'No.' My high school reached out to me after the book came out to send copies to their library. The learning curve for LGBT- we have gotten the privilege of having a very accelerated learning curve on the backs of other minorities who are still struggling to get ahead."

Taliesin: "We got to live- you actually get to live to see the work pay off. Which is rare in human history.

Marc: "As you say, that's just the way it starts out. It starts with exotic, then it becomes noble savage, then it becomes villain, then it becomes minstrel, then it becomes best friend, then it becomes lead. That's just the evolutionary trail."

 54:32 Taliesin: "Culture is not a rocket ship. We all don't get on the rocket ship to the planet culture and go up to the moon. Culture is like life: it is chaotic, it is violent, it is hungry… It is not normal for everything to just keep getting better all at the same time. It's normal for everything to get better over a period of the long game. In any internal point, chaos—"

Marc: "Well, Love is Love, a tragedy made that book come to life."

Taliesin: "That is the soil in which these things get planted, sadly."

Amy: "But that kid who graduates high school [because the book encouraged them when they thought they couldn't do it], who knows what happens."

 0:55:04 Matt: "We've got Blackmarket Bingo asking, 'What does Pride mean to each of you individually?'"

0:55:11 Marc: "Well, pride to me is a loaded word because, as a writer, I think 'pride,' I think 'hubris,' I think pride can be a detriment. There's pride with a lowercase p and there's Pride with a capital P. I think, for me, Pride in the LGBT sense of the word is lack of shame, is owning who you are, and not apologizing for who you are."

Taliesin: "Personal honesty."

Marc: "And being a good person who's an honest person. If you're an honest person and you live your life by the only direction we need as people: treat people the way you want to be treated. I don't care if you're gay, straight, Black, white, Republican, liberal, conservative, whatever, if you treat people the way you want to be treated that is living Pride because you should be proud of us not yourself; you should be proud of the change you can affect to make the world a better place. And I know that sounds like fortune cookies or Opera, or Yanla (sp?) changed my life or something like that, but it is very true. So, a lot of these clichés are become cliché because they are very true. And I think if you just try and live your life honestly and be nice to people. Hold the door, let someone in in traffic, you know, talk to the old lady in line at the grocery store, you never know what difference that's going to make. You never know how that's going to change the course of someone's life, so why not?"

…

0:56:48 Taliesin: "The notion of, 'We're all in this together.' And I will say Pride for me has always been about… and I got a lot of, well, for various reason I got a lot of crap as a kid, but one of the things I got crap about was this notion from some people, this was the weird one, that I was somehow putting effort into being this kind of person. That this took effort, that I was somehow pushing forward a pretense, and I just kind of had to do the, "No, this is actually…"

Marc: 'Who has the energy?"

Taliesin: "Who has the energy to pretend to be this weird and awkward! This is just me letting go and if every- like-"

Marc: "I'm not Andy Kaufman, this is all real."

Taliesin: "This is not an act! this is just- I mean, occasionally it's curated, which is different, especially this being the internet, but like, just the notion that if we all are- and the honesty that I was talking about, it was not honesty to other people necessarily, but just waking up that morning and being the person you feel like being and then just treating everybody the way- and just finding that communication between real people, not people trying to live up to some notion of who they think they should be."

0:57:50 Marc: "Well, once again I'm going to circle this back to a quote Patty Jenkins said, she talked about how the word cheesy is banned on her sets because she said, 'When did we become afraid of genuine emotion and sincerity.' And I'm guilty of this; we've all become too cool for school; we've all become the kids in Heathers and all that. And that's kind of why we're at where we're at now: We're afraid to cry, we're afraid to let down our walls, and I can't even read the quote because I start bawling, but she talks about we're in a really difficult place as a species right now. We should be embracing sincerity and genuine emotion and that sort of thing. We shouldn't be afraid of it anymore. And I just responded to her, I tweeted back, 'Fuck yes!'

 1:09:28 Marc: "There's something to be said for the hidden and the metaphor, you know?"

Taliesin: "Yes!"

Marc: "It's great that there's so much acceptance for LGBT characters and LGBT people today, but part of me wishes it was still back when I was in my 20s when you would get- you would see someone as a party and be like, [knowing nod] 'Yeah, I know,' and it was just unsaid or your would know that Peppermint Patty and Marcy are going to have a bed and breakfast in Oregon when they're adults."

Taliesin: "Obviously."

Marc: "And all that secret handshake stuff was… It's immeasurably better now and I'm putting this in… I would never want it to change, but there was something that the not knowing, the not having everyone be in on the joke, was nice because it also gave us an ownership of ourselves where it was the club we could control, we were the bouncer at the door of this club, and of course, ironically, homogenization is a good thing and to an extent of everyone being missed up, but there's something to be said about the subtlety of that, and I think a lot of times the subtlety and the metaphors are far more impactful than the direct."

 1:15:41 Taliesin: "You have to be open to new ideas and you have to have faith in your ideas, if you think they're good ideas, that they're not… if they're good enough ideas, the world is not going to break them in half. They don't need to have a fence built around them. If you have good ideas and philosophies about the world, the world's not going to break them, it's going to enforce them.

 1:20:10 Marc: "'Cause I always say that being gay is a huge part of who I am, but it's also an utterly insignificant part of who I am. We're all, once again, we're all have the same day to day struggles."

 1:54:18 Amy: "I don't talk about it much, but I'm the B in LGBT, for the record. Doesn't tend to come up a lot."

Taliesin: "Are we going there?"

Amy: "Well, I am."

Taliesin: "Yeah, I am, too. Fuck it."

 Taliesin looked at her with intense trepidation after she said it. Worried about what that step might mean, but also what it said about him if he did that whole episode about Pride and but was too scared to show it. And then wrote it off with a brief shrug and "Fuck it."

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#Wednesday Club #Geek & Sundry #Wednesday Club Transcript #Transcript #GSA

[adigeon]

february fic roundup & fic recs

(originally posted on dreamwidth)

I wrote 13,830 words in February, according to my tracker, which isn't awful. On average I wrote 493.9 words a day. The most words I wrote in one day was 3,013, and I had 12 days where I wrote nothing :(

Details on what I posted in February behind the cut, as well as some links to fic I read and loved in February:

What I posted:

Days When the Rain Would Come: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, 1,732 words, rated T. Summary: Tony deals with someone unexpected coming to Peter's rescue, someone he really would rather not be playing nice with.

Peldor Joi, Doctor Bashir: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, 5,279 words, rated T. Summary: The Bajoran Council of Vedeks insists that Deep Space Nine's temple host the Orb of Time during the Peldor Festival celebrating the tenth year since Cardassia ceded control of the station. What could go wrong?

better than a homing beacon: Star Wars Original Trilogy & Star Wars: Rogue One, Cassian Andor/Luke Skywalker, 4,055 words, rated T. Summary: Cassian repeats what he’d told Loneozner: he needs transport to the Thand Sector, and quickly. No Hutts, no Imperials, and he can work for passage. And, of course, the droid: “There’s something wrong with my R4 unit,” he says. The R4 spins its dome in acknowledgement. “Any time it accesses its nav systems, it crashes.” “Luke’s really the person to ask about droid stuff,” Camie says.

Diffused Light: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Karl Mordo/Stephen Strange, 1,440 words, rated T. Summary: While trapped in the Soul Stone, Stephen Strange receives a visitor.

The Latest Work: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, 1,220 words, rated T. Summary: Garak is put in the unfortunate position of having to correct a misconception Bashir seems to have about Cardassian culture.

Found Wanting: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Ezri Dax/Kira Nerys, 945 words, rated T. Summary: There's one of Jadzia's memories in particular that Ezri thinks a lot about.

What I read: 

Now for some recs! I did a lot of reading in February, so this is a bit lengthy. February was also the month of "huh, didn't realize I shipped that," including me dipping back into Harry Potter fic for the first time in years.

The Second, Silver: MCU, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, 9,122 words, rated M.

Summary: It was a beautiful watch. A mechanical wonder in rose gold, with a blue dial that showed the heavens, the moon and the stars. But it didn’t mean anything. It was simply another beautiful object that Tony owned. Though he admired the construction and design, the watch wasn’t even particularly to his taste, too cold and remote, its hands too delicate. He wondered why he’d gotten it in the first place.

Rec notes: Can't recommend this one strongly enough - mundane/no powers AUs for MCU aren't usually my thing, but the Tony voice in this is dead on, and Tony's POV of watching Stephen change is excellently done. There's a great thread running through the whole thing about Tony's reputation in the public eye and the extent to which he's closeted that I found incredibly compelling. (I actually read this in January according to my bookmarks, but I couldn't bear not sneaking it in here!)

we're in the process of rebuilding (and we're starting from scratch): Star Wars: Rogue One, Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook, Bodhi Rook/K-2SO, Cassian Andor/K-2SO, Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook/K-2SO, 4,524 words, rated T.

Summary: “I think my best friends have replaced me,” Cassian said over his breakfast. / Jyn was the only one left at their table, and she raised an eyebrow in reply. He knew what that meant. She was just interested enough to continue listening but not so curious that she’d ask him to go on. He did anyway. / “Bodhi and Kay have been sneaking off to spend time together when I’m not around.” / “Pretty sure that’s just called ‘hanging out,’” said Jyn.

Rec notes: Post-R1 everyone lives, has Bodhi befriending K2, Cassian being jealous of both of them, and it's just really lovely. Nicely understated, almost, given how complicated the relationship dynamics are in this.

Flighty: MCU, Scott Lang/Sam Wilson, 5,472 words, rated T.

Summary: In which Scott Lang spills his guts to Sam Wilson at who cares o' clock in the morning, and it all goes uphill from there. Feat. Wakandan infomercials, brooding worthy of any A-list superhero, an uncomfortably sincere compliment, and a requited crush.

Rec notes: This is so great. Scott POV, Scott learning Xhosa from Wakandan infomercials, just a fantastic portrayal of Scott in the aftermath of CA:CW. Also just pure chemistry between Scott and Sam and great banter. I did not realize I shipped this but I think I ship this.

volatile: Star Wars: Rogue One, Cassian Andor/K-2SO, 1,856 words, rated T.

Summary: Found Index : startled laugh, with the light in his eyes; squinting up at, his mouth shaping kay kay kay like a benediction as if machines could be blessed, but maybe they can, because there is cassian andor, smiling and squinting, and—

Rec notes: Bang-on K2 POV, and the pseudocode interspersed throughout works wonderfully.

deep in my soul: MCU, Karl Mordo/Stephen Strange, 1,695 words, rated E.

Summary: Within the Soul Stone our heroes dream the sweetest of dreams, all unaware they are in trapped in an imagined paradise. All except Stephen Strange, who wants to savor what the Stone has gifted him.

Rec notes: It's porn and it's also very sad and very very good!

To Watch the Faraway Stars: MCU, Heimdall/Loki, 2,930 words, rated T.

Summary: There aren't many things Heimdall cannot see. Loki is sometimes one of them.

Rec notes: Wonderful Heimdall POV, especially the bits where Heimdall is looking over the universe and seeing things that no one else could. There's such a great melancholy optimism to the fic, too, which befits its setting post-Ragnarok.

Sick Day: Broadchurch, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller, 1,560 words, rated G.

Summary: When Hardy calls in sick, a suspicious Ellie decides to pay him a visit.

Rec notes: Dead-on Hardy & Miller chemistry, and I love how restrained Hardy is in this. Hardy/Miller can be a little...florid, sometimes, with Hardy coming out of his shell too readily for my tastes, but here he's perfectly in character while being a little more emotionally vulnerable with Miller than we get to see him in canon.

when the wolfsbane blooms: Harry Potter, Remus Lupin/Severus Snape, 7,576 words, rated T.

Summary:  Even a man who is pure in heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/And the autumn moon is bright. Or: Severus Snape makes a new friend, invents a new potion, and accidentally changes everything.

Rec notes: Canon divergent Marauder-era Lupin/Snape; diverges after the Whomping Willow incident. Snape starts researching werewolves and decides to cure lycanthropy. Cue Snape spending lots of time with Remus, testing potions on him. Snape is still convincingly Snape, and all the potions-theory stuff included is aces.

upon this tidal wave of young blood: Harry Potter, Harry Potter/George Weasley, 10,124 words, rated T.

Summary: George stands before him in the doorway, like a gangly, terrible ghost. His face is heinously pale, which makes the dark bags under his eyes pop in a way that is altogether unflattering, and he wears only a large, striped sweater and a pair of boxers with bats on them. His hair is much longer than it had been last time Harry had seen him, and it’s pulled back into a loose knot. “Harry,” he says, and it comes out breathlessly. / “George.” Harry stands there, wholly encapsulated by familiar heartache just at the sight of his friend. His eyes flick past him to investigate the flat. Clothes and dirty dishes are strewn all over the living room and, if he’s not mistaken, there are at least three pairs of underwear hanging from the ceiling fan. He glances back at George, who is now leaning against the doorway staring at him, expressionless. Harry clears his throat. “I, um… came for a visit. Sorry.”

Rec notes: Harry/George is a post-canon HP ship I had never thought about before, but now that I've thought about it I reckon I might never stop thinking about it.

George Smiley's Wikipedia Page: John Le Carre's works, gen, 1,139 words, rated G.

Summary: What it says on the tin. An imagining of how George's wiki page might look in universe circa a few years after Legacy.

Rec notes: An in-canon wikipedia page for George Smiley. Excellently put together; I especially got a kick out of the "In popular culture" section.

@heyitsspiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, gen, 27,392 words, rated T.

Summary: @heyitsspiderman: people act like they know this city but when i’m in the air i find more boroughs all the time. so far ive counted ten. dont listen to big brother in your ceiling (google) telling you otherwise (google maps)

Rec notes: Marvelously put together work where the various Spider-people figure out how to text between their dimensions and end up in a group chat together. Also, Miles is on Twitter! The coding on this must have taken so much work. The character voices are dead on (I especially enjoy Noir in this,) and the way the plot comes in while sticking to the text/Tweet/etc. format is extremely clever.

#fic recs #my fic #roundup #kim.txt