#i am once again wordy af

[stoopid-turtle]

made-up thoughts about dd's gender presentation

Okay, the gender post! Honestly, dd's gender presentation is something I think about a lot (ok, I just think about everything dd-related a lot), so here's a post about it. A couple disclaimers on the way down though.

Gender is weird

Um, so gender is complicated and deep. I'm not gonna delve into that too much. Just know I'm not saying much about dd's gender identity, because that's too speculative for me and I don't tend to analyze how people might feel their gender inside.

So this is all about gender expression or performance. The way he presents himself to the world. This includes stuff like clothing, ways of talking, makeup, mannerisms, etc. Anything we can see when we watch him.

For those more into the advanced gender convo, yes yes, gender is a social construct and there's nothing inherent about, say, a tuxedo that makes it a "man's" outfit. Fully onboard with that. But for simplicity's sake, let's shortcut to acting as if we buy into how society genders random stuff so as to recognize that a tux is "male-coded" by just about every society in the present day. Everybody swims in these waters, and they perform their gender with the understanding of how their society assigns these arbitrary gender assignments, so let's just deal with that for this convo. /obligatory gender theorist disclaimer

East vs West

I'm in the US, and I fully recognize that there are different norms for gender in Eastern cultures. A lot of the things that read as "feminine" to Western eyes is more neutral in the East, such as long hair or makeup. (I've read a fantastic tumblr post that went into this in-depth but, alas, I can't find it now. You will notice throughout this post that I am extraordinarily bad at refinding things)

On top of that, idols, in specific, often have quite feminine stylings to Western standards. In the East, the vibe I get is that idols are seen as more androgynous (though still threatening to some forms of masculinity).

I can only speak from my own very westernized perspective, so take it with as much salt as you want. I reserve the right to change my mind about everything later, anyway.

Basically, I have 3 main points here, starting with:

1. DD's early styling was more femme than he would ordinarily gravitate to

There's a moment I think about a lot. This one, specifically, set a month and a half after UNIQ's debut. The band is on a Chinese talk show and the host enthuses about them.

(also, baby DD rapping Love the Way You Lie is just....well, it's a thing that happened) (some US context: Love The Way You Lie was an Issue Song pointedly about domestic violence with Rihanna - an artist who had been a victim of a highly publicized dv assault - as the chorus singer and Eminem - a rapper with a history of misogynist lyrics (with a song about murdering his ex-gf) - doing the rap. It had a weirdly sexy music video with that lotr guy and was also a thing that happened)

DD is 17 years old here--a baby--and he's, frankly, adorable. He notes that he's been training for 4 years (I'm so curious about what idol training looks like, tbh), which wows the host.

But the part that I think about a lot is when the host expounds at length about how beautiful and like a girl dd is. DD has a girl's hairstyle (i've had that exact hairstyle at multiple points in my life), and the host says at various points that he's "more beautiful than girls", that girls will envy him, that he is very very pretty, that if she were a man, she would fall in love with him. The basic upshot here is that much is made of his feminine looks, and I get the vibe that his styling is more femme than typical, even for an idol.

At the same time, I think about this moment of dd in a dance competition in 2011, before his debut. DD's main passion has always been dancing, and he went into hiphop dancing, as shown here. He also attempted breakdancing while younger, though an early injury apparently kept him from going that route (I swear I've heard this somewhere, but can't find where. Link me if you know).

DD was interested in the more macho-types of street dances. Hiphop isn't as dominated by men as breaking is, but it's still has more of a masculine culture than jazz or, you know, waacking.

I think a lot about a kid who wanted to spend his life dancing, who went through idol training to debut as the femme maknae of a group. It was a weird fit for him, and I think his movement away from that initial look reflects that.

At the same time, I want to go back to something I find significant about his talk show appearance.

When asked who is most popular among girls, everybody (dd included) points to dd. (A bandmate also jokes that dd is most popular among men). A 17-year-old kid who just debuted a little over a month ago with a femme style is already getting fawned over by fans and older female hosts. However weird it could be, it's gotta be a huge ego-boost at a formative time to get the positive feedback to that look.

I think (and putting on my speculation hat here) that this is important for dd's performance of gender as he gets older.

Which brings me to the next main point:

2. DD enjoyed his more feminine idol look bc he knew it made him attractive

I suspect dd came to some acceptance of the more femme styling (once he moved away from the white peony look) primarily because it got him so much fawning.

I imagine idol training goes into how to create a public persona for oneself, especially given how much idols are supposed to reveal of themselves. Letting fans feel that they're getting an intimate look at the real person, while still maintaining the privacy of their actual personal life, is a skill, and I expect it's second-nature to dd at this point given how long he's been in the industry.

This isn't to say that dd's fake or that the dd we see publicly isn't "really" him. But it is a carefully presented version of him that intentionally keeps his private life private.

There's really 2 periods where we probably see the most authentic, unfiltered dd: the early UNIQ days, when he was still getting the hang of the ent industry (though that's complicated in that he was also young and under pressure to perform a certain way and had not developed the skills/experience/cache to set limits, hence him doing a lot more cutesy stuff that he refuses to do as he gets older); and the bts footage for CQL, as he did not expect those to be so widely seen. Even the unscripted stuff like DDU and SDC allows for some intentional presentation of himself in a way the more candid bts moments did not.

That's a bit of a digression, actually, but it's important because I think this public persona, especially the idol persona, is more femme than dd would normally style himself (as in, how he would style himself if he weren't an entertainer). The result of this is that we see some contexts, such as the CQL fanmeetings where dd wears women's outfits, where that idol style is intentionally deployed. Part of the point of fanmeetings is fanservice, and dd's feminine presentation, linked as it is to his idol image, is wholly about pleasing the fans.

There's reason to believe that dd was never too much into those stylings because he intrinsically enjoyed them. He's said multiple times in interviews that he prefers going without makeup. This isn't too telling because, hey, makeup can be uncomfortable to wear. Especially stage makeup.

But there's an interesting compilation of interview clips where dd reveals his complete lack of even any interest in makeup, referring curious interviewers to talk to his makeup artist and explicitly associating makeup with women (I have looked everywhere for this. I swear I saw this compilation on YouTube but now I can't find it. This is unfortunate bc this particular video really made me think about dd's gender presentation). And of course, his attempt to do someone else's makeup was...adorable. This is not a guy who wears makeup for the joy of it. He wears it because it's part of his job.

This isn't to say that dd looks down on it. Not at all. We only have to look at his defensiveness of the idol look to gg during the bts to see this. I don't think he's at all bothered by makeup. He just accepts it as part of his career.

(I have a completely made-up story in my head about how gg's preference for no-makeup dd was a major romantic thing bc it's gg liking the real dd, not the idol persona that everybody else fawns over. And how, once dd realized that gg was paying him a compliment, it gave him big feels. This story is definitely not real)

This all is gonna lead me to my last main point:

3. DD's probably okay taking on a more masculine style now bc it fits more how he would naturally dress himself

Like millions of other people, I really dig the idol look. When I was doing my initial dive into turtledom and read about some of the Chinese censorship of idols in recent years, I was initially put out because...idol!dd!

(Ok, as a queer person, I also have big solidarity feels and stuff, but that's a whole digression)

But then I began obsessively watching browsing dd stuff on YouTube and I came around to thinking that while I love and miss idol!dd, I don't know that dd is too shook up over it.

In my view, dd sees that type of styling as a role to put on for certain performances. Now that it's out of style, so to say, he switches to something else. It goes along with some other career transitions he's making, such as focusing more on film. I think this may just let him go with a more "natural" styling (basically, how he would style himself if he weren't a celebrity).

(I do think he likes dyeing his hair fashion colors, but that's not necessarily gendered. He's had plenty of dyed hair looks that are still masc)

When I think of things like that...well, I still personally miss idol!dd because that look really works for me. But I'm not bothered on his behalf because I don't know that he feels particularly constrained by the idol crackdown (at least with regards to no longer being able to present with an idol style; there are other aspects of the politics that may feel constraining, but that's a whole other digression). If anything, it provides a good reason for him to move away from idol-dom in his career (which he'd have to do at some point as he ages).

To wrap this up, I've felt horrendously guilty that the first photo on this tumblr wasn't even of dd or gg, so i'm gonna end this with a photo of idol!dd. I'm not gonna say it's my favorite look, because it's just cruel to make me pick a single favorite. But this is one I think is pretty.

#bjyx #yizhan #i am once again wordy af #lemme tell you dd's thoughts on gender #maybe #okay i'm just guessing #only dd (and gg) really know #his tiny fake ponytail just works for me

[michaelwavemichaelwave]

i am intrigued by arise… what could that be?

Hehehe

I'm so glad you ASKED!!

Arise is the title of the WIP that I occasionally allude to in various tags, and I've been working on it since May. (The title has changed over time, but I think I'm finally satisfied with Arise!)

Basically it's a Midam fix-it fic! (It alligns mostly with canon events, but it's very different from canon.)

It starts pre 15x08 when they're getting out of Hell and progresses into post canon! (I'm doing a terrible job of selling it, I know, I'm so bad at summarizing it without giving anything away! 😂) But they visit Kate, Adam goes to college and becomes a doctor and other fun stuff!

I've been mostly working on editing/ revising/ adding to later chapters. There's still parts that I've yet to write/ expand.

Word Count is currently 60,000. (I plan on posting it once it's complete, which is TBD 😂!)

Here's the opening prologue of the first chapter! Let me know what you think/ if I should change anything!! (Is it engaging? Too wordy?) I don't think I've read the first chapter since the Summer, but I believe it's done (DEFINITLY still need to tweak a few things. I feel like the second paragraph is a bit repetitive and I should cut it down for clarity as well as other parts.) (Ok, now I'm rereading it and can't tell if it's dull af or if I'm just being over critical of my writing. Definitely both. But I'll be cutting some of this from the final version).

"Adam!"

Adam lurches up from where he had been nestled against Michael at the urgency of his voice. Peeking his head up from where he had settled to sleep for the night.

They had long since discussed the subject that Adam doesn't need to sleep. But Adam was adamant that, "What else is there to do in Hell for a thousand years?" 

To which Michael would respond with "work," like the work-a-holic he is. Or "A thousand years really isn't that long of a period of time." But with the increasing amount of time they spent in Hell his tone would imply differently. Having worn into a cold resignation over the years.

Adam would roll his eyes at him, and try to correct his concept of time to that of humanity's. But even he grew distant from "humanity." He seemed to exist in a strange place of being too old to be human but too young to be an angel.

"Adam." The repeated stern caution of Michael's voice jars him back to full attention.

"What is it?" Adam asks warily as he anxiously strokes Michael's feathers as he sits up. Both to sooth Michael as well as to fidget with something.

"The Cage. It's open." Again.

"Oh," is all he can get out.

The memory of the first time is still deeply burned into their minds and Michael's wings. The searing agony of the bars against his body that remained even after Michael had instinctively fallen to the ground of The Cage away from the bars. How the pain had penetrated into his soul even through Michael's grace. Michael writhing on the floor trying to soothe all of his feathers at once. How Adam could only watch after Michael had taken the brunt of the anti-angel warding and material of the bars. They were made of the same material as angel blades, and making contact with them caused grave injuries that lingered and were slow and stubborn to heal. Michael's feathers had long since regrown after that first incident that had occured in year 203 of their confinement. However there were still a few scars that had yet to heal where the feathers hadn't grown back.

[Removed 2 paragraphs here to edit later, but I don't think they're necessary]

After the first time trying to exit The Cage they'd agreed to be more patient. Michael apologized non-stop for failing Adam, and Adam had to assure Michael he wasn't to blame, he honestly would've done the same. But something about that hadn't set right with Michael. He prided himself on his patience, and yet he had been moved to rashness in that moment. It weighed on him- being human, failure. Everything about The Cage had stripped him of his status, his family, his power, his freedom. How could he make an error in perceiving The Cage as open when it wasn't? Michael had never made mistakes before, and failure was immensely devastating. What was he if he made mistakes?

And Adam had taught him how to recover from mistakes- he was an expert on the subject. Though Michael still struggled, Adam made it bearable.

After that Michael had closed himself off from Adam before eventually allowing himself to be more open in front of Adam. They shared a desperation to be free of The Cage, but together they kept each other in check.

And when the door had seemed to open for the second time- Again they had fallen for it.

They couldn't keep ramming into The Cage walls with reckless abandon whenever the opportunity presented itself.

It worried Adam how The Cage could trick all of Michael's eyes. And Michael would fall for it because his eyes and senses had never wronged him before.

Michael would consult Adam when he thought The Cage was open. He’d consult Adam, and those would be the rare glimpses that Adam got of The Cage that Michael always carefully shielded from his view. He’d report back that The Cage appeared to still be sealed. Then they'd wait, and watch until the door closed again. And pray that that wasn't it.

But this was different.

Adam paused for a beat over the electric race of Michael's thoughts and emotions.

“It’s open.”

#Thoughts? #Definitely drags in some places and I'm going to remove those #there's also error that I didn't bother to fix cause I'll have to fix them on the main doc too! #But this is my silly little project 'where if I mess up the first chapter it doesn't matter if chapter 7 is good or not.' #No I don't put too much preassure on my writing to be perfect Noooo #(actually I'm usually worse than this) but this is good criticism- it makes it stronger! #Revising also takes forever but it's very much worth it #spn #midam #supernatural #notes #Thank you so much for the ask!! I'm really excited to talk about it! Let me know you're honest thoughts #*YOUR thoughts!

[signifying-something]

Artemis Fowl: Animated Bloopers

So a couple weeks ago on the Artemis Fowl Incident Report Discord server ( @artemis-fowl-incident-report ), the brilliant @brekkie-bing had an amazing idea. Like how The Lion King and Brother Bear had animated bloopers in the post-credit scenes, she wondered what that would be like if we ever had an animated Artemis Fowl movie or tv series. That is where the greatest, most stupendous chain of ideas was birthed~~

SO MY SWEET PEEPS!! I present to y’all a whole host of bloopers me and a number of other people came up with, and feel free to reblog your own or even draw some of them!! As the great Super Mario says, LETSAGOO!!

Mulch is about to blow a big one, but it just comes out as a squeak

Foaly’s got a scene with a long rant in it, but he keeps jumbling up his words and they do about 76 takes to get it right

Holly writing “Fresh AF” in white marker on Artemis’ sunglasses, when he puts them on in a high tension scene you can here the whole crew in the background laughing

A phone goes off during filming. The ringtone is Madonna’s ‘Papa Don’t Preach’. The phone is Butler’s...

The camera pans on Holly eating some vole curry on set without realising her it’s her scene, her eyes widen as she’s like “OH CRAP ARE WE SHOOTING?”

Holly and Artemis goofing around during the punch take

Holly actually punches him super hard and he’s out cold

Artemis cracking up when he fumbles a line. Like, the voice actors just messing up and taking the piss

That one scene is Book One where Angeline has a weird homemade mannequin thing dressed as Artemis Fowl Senior, and the head just rolls off mid take and everyone bursts out laughing. Artemis is hands on knees screaming at the floor in laughter.

Juliet and Holly strutting and posing in the dressing room with Butler filming them

A full on argument between Argon and Cumulus which slowly delves into insulting each other

When they print out the first translation: “This...is [censor bleep]” cue laughter behind the camera

Julius roots cigar being too strong and he just chokes on the smoke for a painful five minutes while the crew hold in their laughter

Artemis struggles saying ‘I don’t like lollipops’ with a straight face

Footage of the troll fight without audio mixing so it's just Butler grunts and plate mail noises

Holly filming Artemis getting make up done on set

Artemis, glaring: I bet you won't release footage of your hair and makeup getting done

Holly does anyways

He’s getting some face powder on his noggin and Holly warns; “If that stuff gets on my hand when I punch you..”

Artemis, constantly: What's my line? I have so many words.

Artemis: I read the script but it’s all just words

Artemis:...*sigh* LINE???

When they finish a take they all just start dancing randomly cause thank god Artemis finally got his line out

Like Artemis walks into the room all intimidating and then he just stands there and he’s like “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing”

Artemis: L

Juliet: If you say line again I will throw one of the gold bars at you

Like Holly’s just watching and waiting awkwardly

Artemis: And this vial uh contains...llll

Butler: *glaring*

Artemis: llllemonade

Artemis running lines off camera and he's great and intimidating and subtle when he actually knows the words

When the director asks if everyone’s good on lines and they all know the questions for Artemis so they all just look at him

Artemis: Do you people understand how many words this is? This is approaching Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead levels of words

He has to pay up for every fudged line and every time they laugh or have a blank moment

Holly has a swear jar and Artemis has a "line?" jar

Artemis assuming it’s Holly’s line and he’s staring at her and she’s like “BRO ITS YOU”

Holly: That's a quarter in the jar

Artemis: THAT DOES NOT COUNT, I DID NOT SAY IT

Grub juggling the bars of gold cause they’re made of styrofoam and one of them hits trouble

Juliet accidently wacks someone else with her jade ring and she just goes "Oh god. I'm so sorry" repeatedly

Julius and Holly can’t stop laughing when he’s yelling at her

Holly doing the flying into scene and she trips while knocking over the props

Maybe a really heart warming scene where Holly catches Artemis playing Moonlight Sonata on the piano and secretly films him in his element

Mulch’s jaw gets stuck and he’s like “no guys I’m serious I can’t shut my mouth” Holly being like “well there’s a first”

Mulch hides food on set like RDJ during Avengers

Mulch would eat all the food and Holly would go "Goddamnit Mulch, why are you like this."

They come off set to get lunch. Food? Gone

Redoing takes because Mulch has cream cheese on his face

Inexplicably, it's always cream cheese

Even when they don't have any on set

Camera zooms in randomly on someone zoning out and making weird faces as they wait

The fairies being so short that the boom mic comes so low down in shots and it gets really annoying for everyone

Butler like Mufasa getting his voice pitch right as the audio rolls

Foaly: Uhh line? Sorry, it's a really wordy scene

Artemis: So it's okay when he does it?

Foaly: I don't call line nearly as much as you do. Aren't you supposed to be a genius?

Artemis: Aren't you?

Butler: Artemis, remember who you are

Butler: Artemis, I am your father

Juliet: Hell yeah you are

Thank you so much to my peeps who contributed: @brekkie-bing @pokegeek151 @the-local-bookworm and everyone on the discord server who was with us during those crazy, like, 15 minutes.

Once again, feel free to reblog and add your own or even draw some of these out! (Low-key looking at you; @brekkie-bing @iesnoth @hop-a-lot @fowlblue @popsicle-stick @blackhollyshort @talesoftales and all you beautiful artists...pwetty pwease 👉🏽👈🏽)

Have fun darlings!

#artemis fowl #eoin colfer #holly short #butler artemis fowl #foaly #juliet butler #mulch diggums #domovoi butler #artemis fowl memes #artemis fowl headcanon #artemis fowl fanart #artemis fowl fanfic #myles fowl #beckett fowl #fowldom #orion fowl

[ltleflrt]

Ltleflrt’s Writing Year In Review

I say this every year, but I wish I’d written more lol.  On the other hand, I thought I was probably done writing Destiel early in the year and thought I’d go into writing hibernation until a new fandom or pairing poked my muse in the ass with a sharp stick, BUT I ended up writing a whole ‘nother goddamn 100k+ fic!  So I’m thrilled af about that XD

Total 2020 Word Count: 164,013 Estimated 2020 Kudos: 1,846 Estimated 2020 Hits: 32,193

My 2020 Fics:

Hunter’s Caress: 161,095 (18,866 written in 2020)

Castiel Jameson won’t rest until the outlaw who murdered his brother faces justice, and Dean Winchester is the only man alive who can help him track the villain down. Some say Winchester is a cold-blooded killer himself; others say he’d been wronged his whole life. All Castiel knows is that the desire glinting in Dean’s green eyes is even more dangerous than he is. Castiel fights to keep his mind on business, but during the long nights on the trail with the dangerously handsome hunter he finds himself dreaming of yielding to Dean’s illicit kisses and losing himself in lawless passion.

Dean Winchester is about to hang when Castiel saves his neck with his crazy plan. But dying might be better than spending day and night playing nursemaid to such an infuriating city slicker. He appreciates the stubborn detective’s desire for justice, but he’d appreciate Cas a lot more if he’d stop being a lawman long enough to just be a man. He certainly has all the right equipment. Dean aches to run his fingers through Castiel’s dark hair, yearns to know how Castiel’s golden skin will feel against him. And before the coming of the next dawn, Dean vows to teach him the pleasures and sweet rewards of a Hunter’s Caress.

Most of this was written in 2019, which is why my Kudos and Hits are estimated, since a lot of that came from Hunter’s Caress. 

I learned so much from this project.  It’s based on a favorite book that I read for the first time when I was 11 years old, and have re-read probably twenty times since then.  Since I had the book open for reference most of the time I was working on this story, I got to compare my writing to a professional.  And y’all know what I think?  I’m kinda better at this than they are?  Not on the story creation front, because I consider Desperado’s Caress one of the best romance adventures I’ve ever read, but on the technical side of things.  Looking at the book with the eyes of a writer, with a little bit of editing experience under my belt now too, I’m just like... this is kind of a mess?  It was actually quite a boost to my ego lol

The Thing About Heaven Is...: 2,363 words

The thing about Heaven is that even though Dean has been here before, this time he’s taking the time to enjoy the experience, and things are a lot different than he expected.

I put a note on this fic that I didn’t hate the SPN Finale, even though I didn’t love it either, but I was being generous because sometimes I’ll remember what we got and I’m filled with rage.  I wake up in the middle of the night and think of all the ways it could have been better, and lose hours of sleep.  I spend far too much time yelling at Jared in my head for talking it up, and also at the imaginary C*W that lives in my head that gets to hear me ranting about how they fucked up so bad at least once a day. 

When I say that I didn’t hate the ending, what I really mean is that Dean going to Heaven first while Sam spends time back on Earth was kinda what I was expecting, so those 2 events are not bad in themselves, but the execution and the lack of Castiel on screen completely ruined it for me.

But that’s what fix it fic is for, right?  I decided to set my fix it fic post 15x20, because I know more invested and skilled writers who enjoy writing canonverse are going to give us hundreds of post 15x18 goodness, so I’ll let them do that while I work with what we got.  This was what gave me catharsis, and even though I’m never going to watch that train wreck of an episode ever again (seriously, I want to rage scream that the last “good” episode was by Bucklemming), I feel like I can come back to this fic again someday and feel some peace when I read it.

Man in the Wilderness: 142,784

As a veteran, Dean has survived more than most people could handle without going completely cuckoo. And he hasn't exactly escaped being a little messed up himself. So he's returned home to the tiny town he grew up in, retreating from a world that has become too much. But when you know everyone in town, the dating pool is shallow and it can be a little bit lonely, even when surrounded by friends and family who love him. And then a drifter on a motorcycle rolls into town, and Dean thinks just maybe this might be the man he's been waiting for.

While wandering the country in an attempt to escape his problems, Castiel's motorcycle breaks down in a small desert town. He's helplessly drawn to Dean, the town's handsome mechanic, and the feeling appears to be mutual. After months of aimless traveling, he thinks he may have finally found his way out of the wilderness.

Technically as of today this is still a WIP on AO3, but I finished the last chapter a few hours ago, so I’m counting the words in my WIP folder too lol

This was a surprise!  It’s a SPN/Destiel rewrite of my Mass Effect/mShenko fic Feels Like Home, which is the first story I ever wrote that made me feel like a popular writer.  Early this year I was brainstorming ideas for a fic where Castiel was the mechanic instead of Dean, and I jokingly said to @jupiterjames that I should do Feels Like Home, with Castiel as the mechanic.  She was enthusiastic about it, but I just laughed it off at first because what a silly idea.  Then I started poking at it.  Like a bruise.  Couldn’t stop.

Obviously I dropped the Mechanic!Cas angle, because it didn’t feel right for the story.  But as soon as I thought y’know, what if it was Mechanic!Dean and Drifter!Cas my muse came roaring awake screaming DO IT DO IT DO IT.

So I did.  And it was even more of a learning experience than writing Hunter’s Caress!  Because now I’m seeing my older writing (7 years holy shit!!), and I’m seeing all the ways I’ve improved over the better part of a decade, and finding even more ways to improve as I go through the rewrite. 

For a couple years now, I’ve felt kind of stagnant in my writing.  I have felt like I lost My Voice, and I was struggling to figure out what was wrong.  Was I just bored?  Yes, probably.  But also, I think I needed to look back at some of my older works that I fucking loved and thought couldn’t be improved...and improve them. 

Just Keep Writing You’ll Get There is good advice.  But it wasn’t working for me, because I’ve written 1-2 novels a year since I started writing fic in 2012, so it’s not like I was just staring at my screen and not putting any words on it while I angsted.  Read And Rewrite Your Old Shit was the next step in my evolution.  I highly recommend it if you’re also feeling stagnant and stuck XD

I’m also super amused, because Feels Like Home was 112k, and at the time it was the longest thing I’d ever written.  On accident.  Like I do.  It was supposed to be for an 8k mini-bang, and I had to drop out because obviously it got away from me and I wasn’t going to make the deadline.  As I was doing the Destiel rewrite, I had to keep cutting scenes and characters out that were specific to Mass Effect, and I speculated that the new fic would be shorter than the original. Ha.  Hahaha.  HahahahahaHAHAHAHAKDJHFADKJHF... fuck I am a wordy bitch.

#oops i ficced #destiel #year in review #2020 year in review #spn finale critical #i'll continue to find the gems in the rubble as much as i can #but sometimes i just gotta say fuck the finale ya know?

[yousoseelie]

Controversial opinion but as I work my way through all of the Robert E. Howard Conan stories (why is everything supple, Robert? WHY?) I am struck by the thought that like

Conan is a lot like Lovecraft (based on what I have heard, since I have not read it YET) [also not surprising since Lovecraft and REH were pals] and Tolkien, of all things.

Hear me out--all three of these authors/bodies of their works are foundational, in a way. Lovecraft spawned an entire genre/whatever of ‘eldritch horror’. Conan is THE original Sword-n-Sorcery bro. Tolkien is widely considered the father of modern fantasy literature, for good or ill.

You know what else these all have in common? They’re all incredibly hard (for me [to be the Bard @sasskarian)] to read. And they have some problems, some more, some less. They are also all alike in that I adore their settings, their worldbuilding, the mythos and everything surrounding them, both in-universe and out, almost more than the actual works themselves. All three also have like, little to no women characters (as far as I know, again, haven’t read Lovecraft yet).

Tolkien/Lord of the Rings is...incredibly wordy and dull, to me. I have completed Lord of the Rings once. One time only, I was in my teens I think. For contrast I have read the Hobbit multiple times, front to back, no issues. I have however, read the first half of Fellowship approximately several dozen times. I just can’t get through it. I also have never managed to read the Silmarillion.

Anyway, I’m incredibly grateful to the movies for making this world I love/d accessible to me again.

Then we have Lovecraft. Secondhand, everything I have heard basically boils down to “the monsters are great but also he is so Unbelievably Racist that it’s borderline difficult to enjoy”.

Which dovetails right into REH and Conan. REH has a lot of subtle (or incredibly obvious at times) racism also pervading his work. Conan himself, doesn’t seem...horribly racist, until you count the amount of times he is ready to kill a white woman rather than let her ‘fall into the hands’ of black characters. He’s in a weird liminal space of being horribly misogynist but also ready to sacrifice his own goals without hesitation to help out female characters which is...weird. But he’s definitely sexist af. Women are pretty much only there 99% of the time so Conan has something to bone. Even the couple ‘strong’ women that have popped up immediately lose all brains the second they see Conan bc he’s just So Manly, Take Me Now. There are a lot of good lines and good moments scattered throughout the various stories but some of them are...yeah, a struggle.

Anyway...long rambling post. Is there a point? Idk. I guess it’s to say that I’m glad I’ve read (/will read) these Classic Things as fuel for my own attempts at writing but also like...I’m so glad we’ve moved on from them in a way. Sometimes things are better as a springboard for others than they are themselves.

#long post #writing #conan #robert e howard #tolkien #lotr #hp lovecraft

[easilydistractedbyfanfic]

What did Raven mean by Murphy being Emoris "moral anchor" and do you think they will have a talk about what happened

Hi there! Thanks for the ask although I gotta tell you - I’m not sure if I have a good answer on this one! Me and @jarleene were talking about this after 7x03 as well, and we’re bummed that no script-to-screens have been released from The 100 Writer’s Room for this episode. Maybe they will clear it up - or maybe that will give too much away, which is why we don’t have them! I’m not sure why they haven’t been shared like usual.

As far as what I think goes... there were some things that felt OOC in this ep for me (what else is new, since plot takes priority over characterization a lot in this show, imho), so I do think there’s a legit chance that some lines are there for plot/humor/sarcasm/shock value rather than something that the characters genuinely feel or think. If we don’t get the script-to-screens for this scene, then I guess we’re left to fill in the blanks ourselves.

That said, I have not rewatched the ep even though I intended to. I’ve watched so many Murven edits since 7x03 aired and I’m drowning in too much angst. But, in this scene, Murphy & Raven are arguing and when Raven delivers this line, Emori’s reaction did seem upset to me even though it was only a glimpse. I don’t believe we have seen clear or deliberate fractures between Raven & Emori’s relationship up to now so it’s hard to say if this is supposed to be one. Because of that, I’m more inclined to think that this is supposed to be a dig at Murphy from Raven, and they were the ones arguing. But that doesn’t quite make sense either because how would Murphy being the moral one in comparison to Emori really be an insult to him? I actually agree that Murphy can be more moral than Emori, but whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter here. What matters is whether Raven means this as an insult to Murphy or to Emori, and if it’s an insult to Murphy, is he bothered by it, does it hit like an insult?

Or maybe we go a little deeper and think about whether Raven intended this as a dig sort of at herself. Does she feel like she’s been trying to keep Murphy in line or on a better path, and is he really going to throw that back in her face? Is she upset here because she sees that she’s backed into a corner and her two family members that are with her are questioning her choices even though she has a track record saving their asses?

I think it’s important to note that in this ep, Raven witnesses the Wonkru mess where Indra supports lying to Wonkru to keep the peace and Gaia wants to tell them the truth. The truth is told, everything unravels and not only is Wonkru broken but no one there will help her/help save people’s lives. She approaches the Eligius IV criminals and hears them infighting. She also mentioned their torture of her earlier in the ep. So in these particular moments, she’s not doing great with the trusting people or having an optimistic outlook. Indra’s stance of keeping control might be resonating with her. And of note - she’s the only one who is involved in all of these scenarios. Everyone else only sees one interaction or none. She initially lies to Eligius IV by saying the repair is routine. This is a lie but as she tells Murphy & Emori, she expects everyone to vomit for a day or two, not die. We hear her say that she didn’t know the radiation was that bad (meaning outside the reactor room), and when she sees Murphy get sick as a nightblood after not being in the reactor room like Emori was, there’s acknowledgement from her that things are worse than she had thought. BUT she also says that it’s too late for the prisoners too.

So, in thinking about all that, I also lean towards maybe the “moral anchor” comment was a dig at BOTH of them for judging her in that moment. It could go deeper if Raven is remembering any of the s6 scenarios too, maybe feeling abandoned by Murphy & Emori still because of them becoming Primes and how that led to a lot of fallout.

But yeah. We don’t KNOW, and it’s a weird enough line that I think it stood out to a lot of us who care about any combination of these three characters. Sorry I once again got wordy af but that’s just how I roll. LOL! Also I hope SOMETHING made sense to you in all of this, but I’m gonna reblog another post with some commentary after this one if you want to read another POV that could shed some light!

ETA - yes, I am hopeful that there will be a conversation about this. It could tie in to quite a lot of Murphy & Raven’s past but that gets into a whole other meta! ;D

Thanks for the ask & stay sane and healthy! xoxo

#my inbox #asked and answered #my meta #murven #murphy x raven #thanks for the ask!

[fire-fira]

Nonbinary Awareness Week Day 4: Visibility For The Invisible

What are my identities besides nonbinary?:

Mixed-race Native-- Cherokee and Lenape on my bio-mom’s side, Oglala Lakota on my bio-dad’s side, and Irish, Scottish, Norse, Egyptian, and German.

Neurodivergent-- allistic hyperlexic and dysgeographic

Abuse survivor

Currently 34 (born in ‘86)

Aro/ace

How do my other identities intersect with my nonbinarity?:

In terms of my gender, part of how I understand it is through my racial identity. I can’t really separate it out, especially not when knowing that my Native ancestors had space for people like me and realizing that is part of what helped me feel safer in being open about who I am.

There’s also the fact that my personal style in terms of how I present myself is a careful balance between trying to be read accurately as my gender (difficult as that is) while also trying to be read as ‘not white’ as possible. Yes I’m mixed, yes I’m white-passing, but I don’t like being assumed to be ‘just white’ because it makes me feel like who I am is getting bleached from me so others can find me more ‘palatable’. It makes my skin crawl. (And considering my hell-beast bio-mother pretty much tried all my life to make me as not Native as possible, the idea makes me feel sick.)

A big part of me knowing who and what I am as early as I did (age 4) is thanks to the fact that I’m hyperlexic and that part of how my hyperlexia was expressed back then was through logic and an understanding of ‘If I do x, then y will happen’ (over everything from the possibility of death by getting hit by a car if I stepped into a street too soon, to abstract concepts like the idea that I’d be locked in an asylum and never let out if I told anyone I wasn’t a girl or a boy-- this is the kind of crap I thought about even when I was 4). I was way too damn smart for my own good as a little kid, but it served me well in that I was able to figure out what I was not long after my memories first started up (my 4th birthday, it was like I hadn’t existed before and then someone threw a switch and just-- BOOM-- instant awareness and no memory of anything before and no recognition of where I was, it was weird AF), and knowing what I was that early on gave me the sort of stability I needed to know that if I existed then others had to.

I was going to say that my dysgeographica hasn’t impacted my gender, but thinking about it I can think of one way it did. Since it’s so easy for me to get lost and turned around, I learned early on how to let go and trust that I’d either find my way or that someone I was with would be able to get me to where I was going. In a way, that kind of took some of the stress off of trying to find an answer for what my gender was as a kid.

As for being an abuse survivor... OOF. There are a lot of awful things I lived through (primarily emotional/mental abuse and neglect-- I’ll spare everyone details because it’s heavy as hell) but the worst of it did give me some perspective. Me hiding who I am was miserable as hell, and while being nonbinary can be nerve-wracking in some crowds, being able to look back on my personal hell and the fact that I survived gives me a confidence I don’t think I’d have otherwise. Nothing that life can throw at me will ever be as bad as that. People can be as hostile and ridiculous as they want, but they can never make me be closeted about being nonbinary again.

Yay being 34. (Tbh I used to think-- probably because of the abuse-- I wouldn’t live to see 30. But guess what? I’M STILL ALIVE AND KICKING AND I DON’T PLAN ON GOING ANYWHERE FOR A LONG DAMN TIME. HA-FREAKING-HA.) For most of my life there were no terms for my gender and as a kid I didn’t dare say what I was. To my knowledge (before I found out otherwise later) I was the only nonbinary person I knew and didn’t meet another enby until I was 25. (At least one of the people I was friends with back in high school has turned out to be an enby, but I don’t think they came out until their late 20s.) The ‘90s sucked for having any examples of anyone nonbinary-- both in real life and in fiction. I gravitated toward fiction and clung to whatever characters I found that resonated with me. The one advantage that being so isolated has given me is that it helped me stay in spaces where I felt out of place in circumstances where a lot of other people would have just left, so I was able to get what I needed or do what I needed to.

For a long time-- up until my early-to-mid-20s in fact-- I didn’t realize that my aro/ace-ness and nonbinary-ness weren’t a package deal. (Which is kind of funny in a ‘wtf, where is the logic?’ way because my aro/ace-ness was never an issue for me. I have an uncle on my bio-dad’s side who’s ace and might be aro but idk, so my aro/ace-ness was always brushed off by my family as being ‘genetic’ and therefore not something to be concerned about, but I was absolutely convinced that if anyone knew I was nonbinary then bad things would happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) Because I was so isolated for most of my life, I was under the mistaken assumption that they were all kind of tied together. Thank gods for education. So as a result for a long time how I understood my gender also hinged on my orientation (and dear gods, I know using that word makes me sound old af, but it’s less wordy than to get into the whole tangled mess of how sexual and romantic attraction aren’t the same thing and don’t always ‘line up’ for people, yada yada yada). These days I see all three parts as distinct and vaguely interlinked in my case, but no one part of my nonbinary/aro/ace-ness would magically stop existing if one of the other parts changed.

Why do I think my specific experience is less visible than other experiences?:

Let me put it this way: the line-up of being a hyperlexic and dysgeographic aro/ace mixed-race Native abuse-survivor isn’t exactly a common experience. There aren’t many people who have issues of being de-legitimized on the fronts of their gender, their racial identity, their sexuality and romantic orientation, and their neurodivergency all at once. Or having those things pinging off each other used as a way to call into question their mental faculties.

Even as specific as my identity is, because of how liminal my identities are and my past history of abuse I have to remind myself that I can take up space in areas that apply to me. I am so used to being on the edge of accepted existence, even despite the fact that it’s been 14 years since I was taken out of my personal hell, that I have to occasionally remind myself that I’m not taking attention away from those who need to be heard when I’m one of those people.

There are times I haven’t spoken because I’m in an aro/ace space, or a nonbinary space, or an indigenous space, and what I have going on at a given time involves one of the other aspects of my identity. And thing is, if you won’t ever speak up then you won’t ever be heard or seen. That’s something I’m working on, and this entry for Nonbinary Awareness Week is just one step in that.

What’s something about my experience I would like other people to know?:

You don’t always have to have the answers.

It’s okay to sit back and trust that things will happen as they need to happen if something gets to be too much. You’ll figure yourself out more easily if you let yourself just have things come to you as they will.

It hurts sometimes and that sucks, but things can’t improve if you don’t put yourself out there when you’re ready to. The people who matter most will accept you and love you for who you are, not what they think you are.

Multiple seemingly contradictory things can be true about you all at once, and that’s okay.

It’s okay to stand your ground and be honest about who you are.

Even if you feel isolated and closed off, disadvantaged and backed into a corner, educating yourself and doing the work to decolonize your mind and dismantle internalized prejudices will help immensely.

If you think you’re the only one-- in whatever way-- I guarantee you that you’re not. You just have to give yourself time, make the effort to learn, and allow yourself the opportunity to meet others.

---

[Day 1]

[Day 2]

[Day 3]

#NBWeek #Nonbinary Awareness Week #NonbinaryAwarenessWeek #nonbinary #non-binary #my life #long post

[gatecoeur]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. Learn to know your mutual and followers

{ oh fuck yes, a positivity ask meme }{ @leaguexofxherxown }

I’m gonna go with my current list cuz tbh, some things have become much more prevalent these days due to uh.... quarantine.

Animal Crossing. Cuz it somewhat gives me a structure to my day. That and it’s just fuckin delightful.

D&D. I don’t think I’ll ever reach a point where D&D ISN’T on my happiness list. It’s just a great time where I get to talk to friends and share experiences that are unlike most others. Thank god for the Internet cuz idk wtf I’d be doing rn without D&D in my life.

Music, singing and dancing. And yes, it’s all in a package cuz I do all three at once. I don’t think I’m a shitty dancer or singer, but at the same time, it’s fun to purposely sing horribly and dance like an idiot. Especially in these times.

I think it might be obvious given that I’ve been rping since like... 2011, but writing. I love love love to write. I don’t think I’m great at it cuz I get wordy af sometimes (but then again, so does George R.R. Martin, and he’s been doing alright), and that’s okay, cuz I’m just having fun. Pretty ironic tho, considering that being a narrative designer is a dream job for me.

Talking with my mutuals, especially my boys @huntingbounties and @tex-blades because the convos we have are just super damn engaging. If I could perfectly simulate those types of convos in a video game, I’d be set for life, but sadly, I am a dumbass and can barely code.

#;la reponse #;meme #;pasdepoutine #leaguexofxherxown

[marlettwrites]

I am a bad with getting the emoji to work. but--advice for someone scared about coming out, when did you come out to friends, and when to family? If you're comfy answering all those! for the ace awareness week ask thingy!

No worries! I can’t always find the right emojis either. :)

Advice for someone who is afraid of coming out:

Before I answer this, I just want to say that choosing not to come out is also a valid option. I know in the LGBT+ community there’s a lot of emphasis on coming out and being loud and proud of who you are, and for some people that’s great! There are people who won’t have that option, or who choose to only share that part of themselves with a few select people, and that’s okay too.

Also I am terrible at coming out to people and put it off as long as I can, actually? So. Take this all with a grain of salt, I guess.

A lot of this depends on your situation and who you’re coming out to. I would highly suggest examining where your fear is coming from, and whether it’s rational. Once you’ve figured that out, you can go from there.

If you’re afraid of coming out to your family because your parents believe asexuals are ‘broken’ or ‘wrong’, that’s a real and valid fear.

If you’re in a place and situation where you’ll be safe no matter what their (whoever it is you want to come out to) reaction is, then ask yourself why you want to come out to this person, and maybe consider staying in the closet a little longer.

Not everyone needs to know about your sexuality, especially if it could bring harm to you. It’s okay to not come out to certain people, whether because you don’t feel safe doing so, or because you just don’t want to. It’s your choice, and you should never feel pressured to come out if that isn’t what you want to do.

If you’re incredibly nervous about coming out to someone, despite knowing that they openly support ace people, then it’s all about gathering courage.

Personally, I just walk up to the pe/ople/erson that I want to come out to and try to talk until the words decide they want to come out of my mouth. That method is incredibly inefficient, and can take several attempted conversations over the course of weeks, months, or even years depending on how bad your social anxiety is.

In short, don’t be like me.

If I had to do this all over again, I’d probably start by writing a letter to the person I want to come out to. I’d practice different ways of wording it, if I wanted it to be wordy. If not, I might just practice saying the words “I’m ace” out loud so it won’t be so difficult later.

Make sure that when you come out, you’re in a place where you feel safe with people you feel safe with. Remember that it might seem scary now, but after an hour or two, everything will feel normal again.

The part just before you say the words “I’m asexual” is always the worst, but it can only get better from there.

The most important thing is to take your time.

When did you come out to your friends?

I’ve really only come out to two of my friends, one of which is now my girlfriend. It was March or February of 2016, and we had just discovered that we both have romantic feelings for each other (after like. 6 months of her pulling me into her lap and us giving each other mutual kisses on cheeks and foreheads, and 2 years of other people being like ‘you guys should date’. We were oblivious af lol)

So anyway. We confess our undying teenage love, and I’m thinking ‘she wants to date me, so she should probably know all I want to do in bed is sleep’, So I came out as ace and she said she was fine with it, and we’ve been together ever since. :)

When did you come out to your family?

Hnnnn. I’ve really only come out to my mom? Which was. A Mistake. 

So I came out to my mom a few months after my girlfriend and I started dating as ‘gay’ (A Joke Opportunity arose following a comment from my mom about ‘coming out’ and I couldn’t resist saying ‘I’m gay’. She pulled the car over and demanded a long convo about my sexuality. She spoke loudly and left the windows down. We were in the middle of a neighborhood. A family with young children walked right by the car while she was giving me ‘the talk’. She called my dad five minutes after she dropped me off at his house to tell him I was dating a girl, which wasn’t something I would have told him at that time, especially because of the way she reacted. It was mortifying). 

She then tried to stop me from seeing my girlfriend (gf is kinda sorta long distance. Like, an hour and a half away by car, so the rule is that I can only visit her if I stay for two days or more, and I always sleep in her room) because my mom was afraid there would be some hanky panky.

So I came out as ace as well because I really wanted to see my gf, especially since she had just recently gotten out of the hospital and I wanted to make sure she was okay. That led to my mom asking me how the heck I can have a girlfriend then. I tried to explain, my mom didn’t get it, gf’s mom had to step in and tell my mom that she could calm her tits because gf was hooked up to a fucking feeding tube and even if she wasn’t, gf’s mom was not gonna allow that kind of tomfoolery in her house, no sir.

So yeah, I don’t really talk about my sexuality with family much.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

suzuwarahikaru replied to your post “what happens at 5 am?”

where is the essay, OP!?

@suzuwarahikaru​ Honestly, it’s drivel and I didn’t feel like it particularly went anywhere and it was just me monologuing about one aspect of a bigger question so that’s why I didn’t post it. But ok, just for some context: You probably know how the MCU was often criticised for having “bland one off villains” and that’s true especially in their early films - and that was time when Heath Ledger’s Joker loomed very large and Ian McKellen was famous for his performance of Magneto and the idea for a Magneto solo film had just been scrapped in favour of XM First Class. At that point apparently the MCU guys walked up with the demand that Thor 1 only has to give them 1 thing: A villain as good as Magneto which they could use in Avengers. Now, obviously it had to be Loki, because Loki is Thor’s most famous antagonist and he was the first guy the Avengers ever fought in the comics, and Loki in Thor 1 is satisfyingly complex - but now that Loki’s dead and has a solo show coming out in a while, people dug up that old quote and started arguing about whether Loki actually became a villain “as good as Magneto” - which I honestly wouldn’t care about, except this argument spilled a few  “But Loki is great and Magneto is boring”-posts into the Magneto tag a while ago (which mixes with a lot of: Why did Cherik get a happy end but Stucky didn’t that’s so unfair!!!! posts) and then some comments started lowkey implying that Loki is a character who’s more attractive to sophisticated fans and that Magneto fans are usually men and Loki fans women (with the not so subtle implication being that Magneto fans are comic dude bros who like him for his cool powers and because he’s a Bad Guy(TM) I don’t really care about that, but over the course of this argument someone made a rather interesting post, wondering about what “went wrong” with Loki and while I love Loki as a character and as a villain, it made me ponder what could have been done to make Loki (even) better and to help him stand on his own 2 feet as a character and this was their post:

Now and this was going to be my response: Personally, I don’t think that having spectacular powers or anything make a villain good (they make good visuals though) but whether the hero learns something from fighting them, whether their motivation maybe reflects something that we experience as well and that maybe they unmask something that we usually don’t feel comfortable to address. And Loki has all these qualities.

I’m not going to try to objectively pinpoint where it ‘went wrong’ but it’s actually interesting to look at the XMCU and the MCU and to compare notes. The XMCU is often criticised for being too wordy, too slow-paced and “what’s with the constant time jumps and decade-hopping?” But I think that’s something the Thor franchise could actually have profited from, because…these guys are immortals and it just feels rushed in my opinion to watch their world fall apart in what is for them a matter of a long weekend. 

For example, a bigger distance between the events of Thor 1 and Avengers would have lent more weight to Loki’s disappearance and Thanos torturing and brainwashing him, Thor’s and Jane’s relationship would have been given more time to develop (making their reunion in Thor 2 more meaningful). They could also have given her more time exploring Asgard/battling the Ether. We could have learnt more about the Dark Elves, the Frost Giants, the Nine Realms in general. 

And that’s at least part of the problem, in my opinion: We don’t know enough about Asgard. You can’t just throw in an alien word without world-building and you can’t introduce characters who are millennia old by showing us 6 years of their lives and maybe 1 flashback. There is a reason why a show like Good Omens spent basically an entire episode on Crowley and Aziraphale’s lives through the millennia. Captain America got a film set in the WW2, Wolverine Origins covers over a century of Logan’s story. Magneto isn’t a better (or worse) villain than Loki, because as you said, the writing makes the character and both get pretty good and pretty bad writing at times. But a big difference is: We know a lot more about Magneto than we know about Loki. 

One example of this is personal relationships. Something I never realised before I started typing this is how little space Loki is given to let him form/have/maintain/test/strengthen meaningful relationships. 

Basically, all his meaningful interactions are inside his family. Magneto (to be clear, I’m bringing up so often bc the MCU apparently insisted on being rude af and asking Kenneth Branagh on drawing inspiration from a character who’s basically the opposite of Loki in every regard) gets a lot more screen time to develop his relationships with other characters, even if it means less CGI action scenes. 

In fact, I’m currently tempted to find out how many 1 on 1 dialogue scenes Loki gets per hour of film vs. how many Magneto gets. Loki enters the picture with a family, ‘friends’, a biological father, servants, an entire kingdom of people who know him, but he barely gets to have any meaningful interactions outside of his family environment. Seeing him interact with a friend or even someone who hates him for reasons unrelated to his relationship with Thor or someone who supports him would in turn show us a lot about how he sees other people, how he sees himself, how he treats them, what he values in a person, what kind of people trusts (if he trusts) – that’s a lot of potential that was left pretty much wasted in my opinion. 

One of the first things Agent of Asgard did was add Verity Willis to its main-cast so have a character for Loki to interact with, to serve as a moral anchor, and to call him out on his bullshit. Having relationships is powerful. In the MCU, Loki’s relationship with his mother is such an important, humanising element to his character. Also a lot of headcanons and metas and thoughts about Loki are inspired by those few scenes where we see him interact with the Warrior’s Three and Sif before Loki finds out about his parentage. 

And even when encounters the Avengers, they meet once, they talk once, then Loki he returns to Asgard and they never meet again, except Bruce - and even then there’s barely any time to talk about what happened in Avengers 1. He doesn’t get to form any meaningful relationships with his adversaries when he talks to them in Av1, these scenes just exist to present the Avengers in a certain light. And in the end it’s canonised that Loki was brainwashed so it’s all pointless anyway. (pls (don’t) make me write an essay on agency and the MCU, because honestly, between Bucky, Gamora, Nebula, Loki and everyone else was brainwashed it’s actually worth a conversation)

Even in Thor 1 Loki never meets Jane or Darcy, one of the main-characters. And we never see a single frost giant after the first film. Erik Solveig is the only Earth character from Thor 1 Loki actually meets and he’s brainwashed for most of that and in Thor 2, they don’t get to meet again. 

Imagine if Loki had had someone he trusted in Thor 1 and told them about finding out he’s a Frost Giant and they reject him and treat him like a monster. This could be three or four scenes that don’t throw off the film but would have been very powerful. Or imagine if Loki keeps his heritage a secret from that friend/trusted person and they find out in Thor 2 and confront him about it. Valkyrie and Loki never talk about him invading her mind or the things he saw. 

We never get to see him alone on Sakaar to deal with what he presumes is the end of his home world and the death of everyone he knows and we never see him interact ‘win the Grandmaster’s trust’. 

We never see him interact with the Hulk before they’re suddenly fighting side by side in Infinity War. We never find out exactly what the Aesir’s sentiments towards him are, what kind of prince he was in the past, how present he is in public, what reputation he has beyond silver-tongue mischief guy and which specific events shaped it.

If the MCU wants a villain “as good as Magneto” (which is already annoying bc they imply that Loki is not as good a villain which is such a subjective measure – Magneto done wrong is a horrible and downright offensive villain and trickster characters done right are amazing for revealing the flaws of a hero.*) then they have to give writers and actors the same means to do that with. The X-Men franchise, for all it flaws, always gave Magneto screen-time (so much that people criticised it). 

There’s a Charles-and-Erik dialogue in pretty much every film, allowing us to follow the state of their eternal argument at every step. We see his friendship with Mystique grow and fall, we see Wolverine call him out on his bullshit, his attempt to make young Hank and Mystique feel better about their visible mutations, we know how he treats his followers, his new recruits, his enemies, his students, his wife and his daughter, (daughters, if we count The Gifted and his legacy), his colleagues, his lovers, his ex-lovers, allies and former allies, politicians, police, prison guards, Nazis, soldiers, insane Egyptian gods – and we get to learn his feelings and thoughts about all of these through personal interactions, decisions and gestures. And in turn we know how they feel about Magneto. What do we know about Loki’s feelings about people outside his family? How does he feel about Fandral? What are his thoughts on the Valkyrior? How did his views on Frost Giants change and when? Did he challenge them at all or did he just become cynical about them? 

As I said, Loki is a formidable villain but I think that he suffers from the same problem as many MCU characters: We hardly know them. Think about Natascha whose been part of the franchise since Iron Man 2 but we hardly know anything about her. How much do we know about the family Drax lost? Or about Wanda’s family? About Pepper’s private life? We hardly know anything about them and especially when characters are thousands of years old and we know nothing about their past, it really creates a gaping hole in their biography and that really leads back to my original point: If we could spend more time with them, we would know them better and care more. One of the reason Dark Phoenix is a bit under-whelming is because we know very little about Jean and Scott in this time line. 

There are two DCEU films I actually own and watched more than once: Wonder Woman and Aqua Man. And while I personally didn’t find Aqua Man that good, this film actually tells us a lot about him and despite my lack of knowledge about the DCEU and me being a giant Marvel nerd, I preferred Wonder Woman over Captain Marvel and that is because I felt closer to her character. It really boils down to a “show don’t tell issue” and for me, that would mean: Maybe fewer giant CGI battles. more people living their lives. *(which should also highlight why setting Magneto as a mark for K.B. is so off-mark. Loki is about unmasking hypocrisy, Magneto himself is a hypocrite who regards himself as a hero but often does immoral things and that for example gets unmasked by Wolverine, another social outsider with littl care for social conventions)

#suzuwarahikaru #fandom #marvel #mcu #Loki

[thisandthat-whatever]

Someone just dm’ed me this.

Incoming long novel. Not for illiterates or slow readers.

This is mostly to the anon above:

1) that was NOT me. I had been on tomhollandfilms’ cc only twice, and both times I revealed it was me. I do not typically go to twitter or cc’s because I get severe allergies to excessive reaching and crack and they are full of annoying Z stans who shit on Tom and worship Z like some otherworldly goddess tom should thank his lucky stars she ever considered dating him in the first place , so twitter ain’t my cuppa tea. Also, I am wired too logically that I can’t take crack.

2) although I appreciate being perceived as some sort of an original (sarcasm for those who don’t get it) by that idiot anon, for her to think I must be THAT original that only I get models on my explore page after tom’s model follows is just stupid. Literally stupid. Not only explore page does not solely work like that only for ME but others agreed with me about it which means they experienced the same thing. So for the anon to assume it must be me because I talked about it..... tell me how it is not stupid in any shape or form.

3) This is a general thing that annoys me lowkey. A big misunderstanding by some people who are butthurt by my insults is “she can’t take different opinions”. I have friends whom I dm on a daily basis with and I disagree with them at least once a week about tom or z or whatever and never called them stupid once. You know why? Because it is not your different opinion that makes you stupid to me, it is your actual stupid opinions, not them being different than mine .

As I said many times I say it like I see it. And not only that but I also called people stupid on the opinions that agreed with me but was too reachy for my taste and those people know who they are, which again proves you can test my impatience and make me question your IQ even if ultimately you agree with what I say but the way you are expressing is dumb af.

So get rid of that lazy misconception about me: I do not have a problem with different opinions. I have low tolerance to stupidity in general. This difference is actually lost on those said dimwitted people, as expected.

4) Imani, I haven’t been to your cc enough but you seem to be ok with me and I don’t know enough about you but you are all right in my book (so far, lol) , but after seeing these anons accusing random ass anons they must be me coz they think they are “rude” (did not know I was the one who trademarked the “rude tom stan” title. Also kinda unfair to me to reduce me to just what people perceive as my rudeness) or I bet when people are long-winded like I tend to be, they will think “oh that must be tomh tomh coz they wrote a novel” (again I am not the only one who is wordy).

Imani, bottom line is after having seen people thinking certain anons are me when they are not me, know that I won’t visit your cc (or any other cc) and anyone that says they are tomh tomh there or that says “this must be tomh tomh”, please know that they certainly are not.

You have no idea how minimal interest I currently have in Tom and Z’s rs or whatever the fuck they have now. I keep my thoughts on these sorta topics to replying to a few anons here and there on my blog and then keeping it mostly to DM’s with Jess and Betty, That is it. I am done.

I don’t care about the ship (I stopped shipping them months ago. Could not care less if they are broken up or get back together. I am ”meh, whatever” to both options) nor am I shipping tom with anyone else. I am just trying to hold onto whatever interest I have left on tom and that is about it .

So from now on if you think you see me on a cc, any cc, ever again, know that it AINT ME.

[archiveofolives]

fanfic memetiems!!!

@slipsthrufingers tagged me on this thing, ty!! which is to say, technically she didn’t but i saw ur note on introversion kt so i’m claiming it!!!

putting it under a cut bc i got wordy af lol

OK HERE WE GO

At what age did you start writing fanfiction?

i'm gonna say around 10. maybe latter part of my single digits to early part of my teens. i won't say what my first fanfic was bc i have at least one mutual who's going to block me if i say it (and they have no reason to know anyway lmao) BUT i'm gonna reveal that @slipsthrufingers the demon unearthed it from the depths of the internet once and read it :p

Who is your favorite author?

HERE'S THE THING if ure my friend, i love ur writing. see, i think writing and storytelling are both such human traits that i just want to encourage it out of everyone even when they have a tendency to repeat a sentence 7 times in 2 paragraphs. and i mean, who cares? this isn't a school contest and between capitalism and fascism, i doubt anyone even still cares these days

(altho this much i will say: i'm glad this question isn't about who was my favorite writer back in the rp days. i will, otherwise, go on forever bc the list doesn't stop at u duckie lol)

Favorite type of scene to write?

i am such a trash for dialogues. like, i could be writing my book, space dads or space vikings and i always notice that my banters, my jokes, just anything traded between two people at the least take a life of their own! sometimes it's convenient, a lot of times it's not. i've lost track of my scenes and my plots a lot of times because of this. about the only times i was able to control myself lmao was when i was rping bc...i literally can't control the other character i'm writing with

What is your favorite fanfic?

i don't have one favorite fanfic, i have several i love for several kinds of reasons. but most of them are space dads.

What tags do you avoid like the plague?

incest, pwp and other similar stuff mostly. i'm fine with them existing, i mean part of the reason the tagging system was created was so we could filter out whatever we don't like but i just don't go there, y'know?

What AU do you wish to write but feel like you won’t manage?

OH YOU MEAN THE IDEAS I HAVE IN MY HEAD BUT CAN'T AND WON'T GET TO UNTIL I FINISH MY ODINSONS FIC U MEAN AHAHAHAHAHA

ummm here's the thing: i like to think i have quite the talent for aus. @safarikalamari knows this, i have written her fics of such a nature and described others to her. the trick really is just to find two canons with some workable similarities between the roles and the setting so you won't have to shoehorn everything. if u need help with ur au, ping me, i'll be happy to be of service lmao

OOH BUT i will share this much: once upon a time, i tried to write a fic where atty. phoenix wright, a hogwarts alumni belonging to gryffindor BC COME ON IT'S IN THE NAME, took on the case of sirius black against a prosecutor with a perfect no-lose record, miles edgeworth. whose house i forgot, i think it was ravenclaw. BUT MAN, I HAD IT ALL WORKED OUT, gumshoe was there! and so was ema who's science > magic and maya! maya was gonna try to summon peter pettigrew's spirit so they could question him but obviously she couldn't do it bc he's still alive lmao so she feels like she's a failure and gets heartbroken and runs to the shrieking shack to hide from the world and nick finds her and they investigate the place but it's remus' party night so all that werewolf howling scares the living hell out of them and they run out the forest and come the next morning, they find out on accident thanks to ema's sciency stuff that a lock of hair they picked up along the way belongs to a wolf-like thing. it becomes an important piece of evidence to prove remus' innocence, yes.

Do you outline or write as you go?

if we're talking about fics, i've always written as i go. i got the scenes plotted out in my head and i keep an eye on them from there but the farthest i went with outlining is listing the dialogues i've already come up with (see, again with the dialogues) and then just filling in the deets later, often adding more dialogues to make the flow smoother

What has been your favorite story to write so far?

right now, i have the softest spot for this au i wrote for mari bc after that, my creativity just got sapped out lmao. but i remember that that was really fun to write and reread, i was practically unstoppable.

Do you prefer to write one-shots or multi-chapters? Why?

both. the difference is that the one-shot is the expectation but the multi-chapter becomes the reality >.>;; but i think, I THINK this odinsons fic is going to be a one-shot ❤

What is your favorite kind of comment?

i have a special place for the ones who tell me how much they agree with the fic and my characterization and how it made them feel. and particularly for thor and loki, i love the ones who thank me for writing an odinsons fic that is not incest but very brotherly. :3

Why did you start writing fanfiction? Why are you still writing it?

i started writing fanfic bc my sister started it first. SERIOUSLY a lot of things i do now is bc she did it first and i thought i had to do it to if i wanted to become a full-fledged human being! I'M NOT KIDDING, THAT'S HOW MY MIND WORKED. it's like if you're gonna evolve your starter pokemon, you need a few exps? I THOUGHT FAN-FICTION WAS MY EXP TO EVOLUTION. and then i kept doing it bc you know, it's become a habit for me? but i stopped for a LONG time when i started seriously rping (i remember having like 12 active characters in 6 separate games at one time, it's crazy) and then when rp fizzed out and slowly died, i started churning out like...one, two every couple of months or so? and then i got into the rogue one fandom and literally EVERYONE I KNEW was writing fics, then?? so i got on board and now i'm doing it for thor and loki and HOPEFULLY, hopefully, i get to do it for final fantasy, too. ❤ and maybe get back on the space dads, too, bc i have yet to write my neighbors au lololol

i'm gonna end this post with two things: 1. i'm gonna tag @egregiousderp, @ironmanwlw, @safarikalamari and @whatufish4

2. i'm gonna cite the deep magic on u, kates: we should write together again :p

#meme #tumblr #fan-fiction #liv is typing

[artificialqueens]

Diamonds In The Rough, Chapter 4 - Fannyatrollop

a/n: The Mary Poppins AU is still a thing! This is more of a relaxed project for @fannyatrollop and I, so that’s why updates are so infrequent - but it’s a good time. Fic under the cut <3

The Liaison-Mattel family had been on fairly good terms with the Minj family for some time now, their status as neighbours practically forcing them into socialising. Trixie and Pearl were good friends with Ginger, a girl close to them in age who was the youngest member of the family. She was a robust little thing - a strong, solid form, filled with forceful beliefs and opinions. Pearl had always attributed Ginger’s nature to her flaming red hair, a feature she had always found rather becoming, but one her elders seemed to shun.

Adults were funny in that way, she supposed.

Quite often, she and Trixie would pay a visit to Ginger during the day - be it for tea or for play - and they felt it the perfect opportunity to introduce their dear friend to their delightful Miss Dela.

“They have been expecting us for some time, Miss Dela,” Trixie said as she trotted alongside Miss Dela, tugging on her indigo skirts. “We’d be so happy if you came along - I’m certain Mrs. Minj would be delighted to meet you.”

Miss Dela hummed at the thought, and both Trixie and Pearl took her silence as a sign she needed more convincing. This time, Pearl stepped up to speak.

“And you might get to see Miss Tammie. We’ve heard you muttering about how irresponsible she is, so perhaps you could check up on her?” Pearl suggested. “Make sure she isn’t causing any trouble.”

“Well, if I am to be your caretaker it would be strange for me not to accompany you wherever you go,” Miss Dela remarked, and this was her rather wordy way of saying ‘yes’. “When are the Minjs’ expecting you?”

“Half past eleven,” Trixie replied, her answer quick so she could talk over her sister. Pearl shot her a small glare, which Trixie received with pride.

Miss Dela pulled her pocket watch from her waistcoat, and her eyebrows raised when she looked at it. “Good heavens, that’s in fifteen minutes! At this stage, my dears, you’re not fit to be seen by a scullery maid, let alone Mrs. Minj! Come along to the nursery, we must get you looking decent.”

“A scullery maid!” Trixie gasped. The last time she’d seen Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo was when the girl was on her way home from market. Trixie had been at her window, practically sticking half her body out so she could see her, until Miss Dela pulled her away. Pearl had laughed at her for that.

Pearl rolled her eyes, sighing at the stupidity she was so closely related to. “Don’t tell me you’re looking forward to calling on the Minjs’ maid!”

“I’ll tell you what I like!” replied Trixie, with a huff.

Pearl stuck her tongue out at her. Miss Dela sighed.

“Come along , girls!”

***

For Christmas, Trixie and Pearl had each been given a sixpence. It was a simple little tradition they had in their household, the real coin hidden amongst others made of sweet chocolate in a small velvet pouch, wrapped up in ribbon. Pearl and Trixie would spend their whole morning searching for their gift. In her mind, Pearl found hers the sensible way, by squeezing on the coins until she found one that didn’t melt under her fingers. Trixie found hers the only way she knew how - by eating all the rest.

Now, that coin was tucked safely into the pocket of her little coat, kept warm by Trixie’s constant fiddling with it. Miss Dela had scolded her for shoving her hands in her pockets as Mrs. Minj lead them through to the parlor where they were to take tea with young Ginger. The adults were talking of awfully dull things as they walked, and for once Trixie found her boredom matched by Pearl’s.

“Ginger, sit up straight, there’s a good girl,” Mrs. Minj snapped at her daughter the moment they entered the parlor, and the slight frown creasing Miss Dela’s face did not go unnoticed by her young charge.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Ginger replied from where she was seated at the table, thoroughly chastened. “Hello Trixie, hello Pearl.”

The twins gave their greeting before being guided towards their seats surrounding a table decorated with plates of little sweet cakes and a tea set. It was all very lovely, and Trixie eyed the cakes with eager hunger. Pearl, ever the prissy one, simply sat up straight and waited until she was given permission to eat. Mrs. Minj turned her attentions to Miss Dela, peering at her through little half moon spectacles.

“Now, Miss Dela, is it?”

“Yes, that is correct,” the woman said with a short nod.

“Shall we take our tea in the other room? I can’t say I was expecting your company, but I’m sure we can accomodate you.”

Miss Dela glanced down to the girls at the table, seemingly reluctant to leave them unsupervised. Although she was growing rather fond of her delightful yet strict nanny, Trixie did feel a touch suffocated under her constant watchful gaze. “Please, Miss Dela, go and enjoy your tea with Mrs. Minj. We’ll be quite happy here, won’t we?”

Ginger and Pearl’s nods in unison had the nanny convinced, and she turned to Mrs. Minj. “Very well, it seems the girls have spoken. Lead the way?”

The older women said their goodbyes to the girls, and after Mrs. Minj gave a strict warning that Ginger behave herself, the two quit the room, leaving the girls in relative peace. Ginger breathed out a sigh of relief, her posture loosening and relaxing.

“Gosh, I thought they would never leave,” she huffed, making Pearl frown and Trixie giggle.

“Aren’t you supposed to be behaving?” Pearl asked, reaching out to start pouring tea into their little china cups. Trixie had already started piling her plate with cakes.

Ginger nodded. “Well, yes, but you’d never tattle on me, would you, Pearl?”

“Only because I wouldn’t want to be a snitch. Milk or lemon?” She sounded so snooty as she served the girls their tea, sounding more like Miss Dela than anyone else. Trixie found it rather funny - Pearl did so often try to imitate those above her in an attempt to sound more impressive. Trixie never believed it, because she knew that Pearl was as silly a girl as Trixie was herself.

Trixie swallowed down a bite of victoria sponge before speaking. “Ginger, have you seen much of that new scullery maid of yours?”

“Good grief, here we go again,” Pearl grumbled before drowning her disapproval with a sip of tea.

Taking a moment to think, Ginger stirred her tea and let the spoon clink against the china. “A little bit - she comes in to light my fireplace in the morning. Why do you ask?”

“I saw her when she arrived the other day,” Trixie explained. “And I thought it was so sad when your mother called her by the wrong name. I should quite like to meet her.”

“Katherine? But that is her name, isn’t it?” Ginger asked, cocking her head.

Trixie shook her head enthusiastically. “No, no, no. It’s Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo. I heard her say so myself.”

“Yes, so did I,” Pearl said. “And then I heard it a thousand more times from you, Trixie.”

Irritated by her sister’s lack of compassion, Trixie poked her tongue out before continuing. “I want to see her so I can call her by her real name! She always looks so sad when I see her - I thought, perhaps, it might cheer her up.”

“I suppose it might, if Mama has been getting her name wrong,” Ginger considered, bringing a chubby hand to her chin in thought. “Perhaps we should try and find her.”

“Oh, I’d be so happy if we could!” Trixie cried, clasping her hands together and brightening her face with a cheery smile.

Pearl widened her bright blue eyes, looking thoroughly scandalised. “We most certainly are not! Do you two really want to get involved with a scullery maid? Why, it’s just bad taste.”

“Being a nice person isn’t ‘bad taste,’ Pearl,” Trixie snarked back, folding her arms across her chest. “Where might we find her, Ginger?”

“In the servants quarters, I imagine. I’ve never seen her around the house at this time of day.”

Trixie bounced up in her seat, forgetting her meal entirely. “Well, come along then, let’s go find her!”

Ginger, who seemed more than happy to join in on the adventure, hopped out of her seat with a grin. Pearl, however, remained seated with a sullen, pouty look on her face. “You can’t make me go with you. I’m not spending my time with dirty little scullery maids, and that’s that.”

“Suit yourself. But you’ll be so disappointed when I’m the one with a new friend and you’re not,” Trixie remarked, feeling rather proud of herself. She was going to have an adventure, and Pearl wasn’t! How wonderful was that? “Let’s go, Ginger! I want to meet Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo!”

Giddily, the girls fled from the room, leaving Pearl to sulk all on her own. Oh well, if those two got in trouble it wouldn’t be her fault, and she could impress Miss Dela by saying how well behaved she’d been.

Content to sip her tea in silence, Pearl eagerly awaited the sound of Trixie and Ginger being scolded.

***

“Have you been in this business long, Miss Dela?”

Dela regarded Mrs. Minj with gentle distaste. She’d taken an instant dislike to her after seeing how she treated her daughter - really, little Miss Ginger’s posture wasn’t that bad at all, there was no reason to snap at her the way Mrs. Minj had. And she seemed all too eager to leave the children alone, which Dela could understand if Mrs. Minj had been more pleasant about it. For the most part, Dela stayed silent throughout their tea together, speaking only when spoken to and listening intently to what Mrs. Minj had to say about her daughter.

Apparently, Ginger was far too spirited for her own good. She spoke back, she had no sense of decorum, and wouldn’t know good taste if it yelled in her face. It was all the fault of her hair, apparently, her flaming red locks singled out as the only reason why she was so ill behaved. The way Mrs. Minj spoke of her daughter’s most distinctive feature was as though it disgusted her, and it made Dela wonder why in heaven’s name she’d chosen to name her daughter after the shade. She wasn’t necessarily impressed with Mrs. Minj’s attitude at all - one should not shun their loved ones because of a physical feature, and Dela knew that better than anybody. Tammie’s hair was just as red as Ginger’s, if not more so, and although it definitely contributed to her more outlandish personality, it was all part of her charm.

“Oh yes, quite a while,” Dela said in response to the question posed to her, lifting her cup to her lips and taking a small sip. “Children can make the most fascinating companions.”

“I wouldn’t be able to stomach it. I find them wholly irritating,” Mrs. Minj said with a shake of her head.

A touch offended, Dela took a deep breath before speaking. “In my opinion, us adults must pay children more respect. We expect them to respect us, but how can they learn to do so when we give them none in return?”

“Fascinating, although I can’t bring myself to agree with you. Children learn respect through fear and discipline.”

“I would never wish to inflict fear on any of my charges.”

Mrs. Minj set her cup down on its saucer, her lined face contorting with poorly hidden distaste. “Forgive me, Miss Dela, but it sounds as though you have had a rather privileged childhood. Would I be correct in saying so?”

“Not entirely,” Dela said, a mysterious smile crossing her smooth face. “I simply care very deeply for the children I look after, and I know how to walk the line between damage and discipline. You, perhaps, should learn to do the same.”

It wasn’t like Dela to be so standoffish, but somehow she couldn’t help it - Mrs. Minj’s attitude didn’t sit well with her at all. Quite frankly, she worried for young Ginger, being forced to live under the same roof as this bitter woman.

Mrs. Minj’s eyes narrowed as she stared Dela down, the crows feet around her eyes sticking out sharply as she did so. “Perhaps, but I’ve done well enough raising Ginger in my own way. I suggest you keep out of it.”

Dela smiled sweetly before sipping her tea. “Of course. My apologies.”

***  

Somehow, Trixie had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time Ginger had crept into the servants quarters when nobody was looking.

“They’re all out to market at this time of day,” Ginger explained as she lead Trixie through the mostly abandoned servants hall. It was empty save for the red faced cook, who was slumped over the rough wooden dining table and snoring like a foghorn. Trixie had to stifle a giggle at the sound of her when they’d first come in.

“But if they’re all out at the market, won’t Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo be there too?”

Ginger faltered, her mischievous smile falling. “Oh, I, um, I didn’t think of that.”

“You silly thing! What are we going to do now? We can’t go back to Pearl - she’ll laugh at us because we couldn’t find her!”

“We can still find her, don’t worry, umm…” Ginger hummed, glancing around the room for some source of inspiration. “Let’s find her room. We can wait for her in there.”

Trixie stumbled a little as Ginger took hold of her wrist and started dragging her towards a wooden door that was slightly ajar. “But what if someone comes in? Won’t we get caught?”

“What business would anyone have poking their noses into a scullery maid’s bedroom?” Ginger asked, her tone reasonable yet slightly condescending. Suitably chastened, Trixie followed along in silence.

Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo’s room was awfully small - Trixie was sure her own wardrobe had more space than this. It was strange for her, to think of someone living in such an unpleasant place, with no space and an uncomfortable bed. In all her fantasies about the little Russian princess, how she lived never factored into the equation. Trixie may be young, but she was smart enough to know that something wasn’t right about her future friend living in such a cramped little room.

“Gosh, it’s awful, isn’t it?” Ginger remarked, peering through the dirty window. “I could never dream of sleeping in here.”

Trixie hummed in agreement, fiddling with the thin blanket on the rickety bed. “It must be terribly cold…”

“I think you might be right, you know. She’s always shivering when she comes in to light my fireplace in the morning.”

The sudden sound of commotion from outside distracted them from any more discussion of the maid’s plight, their young attention spans rather limited. Ginger opened the door a crack and beckoned Trixie over to look as well. All of the servants were back from the market, and the whole room was filled with their colloquial chatter and rowdy behaviour. Trixie found it rather fascinating - she never mingled with her household staff much - but any interest she had in them quickly faded when she spotted a flash of blonde hair amongst the crowd.

“Ginger, look! There she is!” Trixie whispered, pointing through the crack in the door.

Ginger narrowed her eyes as she glanced around, but they lit up the moment she found Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo. “Goodness, look how much she’s carrying!”

The young Russian’s arms were filled with all manner of goods, from sacks of flour to bags of vegetables. Trixie was sure she’d never seen even an adult carry so much, let alone a girl as young and skinny as Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo. Yet the strangest thing about it was not the quantity and weight of what she was carrying, but the fact that she didn’t seem to struggle with it at all. It was almost as if her strength was superhuman, and Trixie would be the first to say how thoroughly impressed she was.

The cook, now awake, barked at the poor thing to put her goods in the right place, threatening her with a beating if she didn’t do so quickly. Trixie frowned up at Ginger. “What an awful woman!”

“She’s always like that, even to Mama,” Ginger explained, and Trixie wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I don- wait, Trixie, look! Here she comes!”

Sure enough, Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo was coming closer, having suitably disposed of her goods from the market. Trixie and Ginger scurried behind the door so they’d be out of sight when the scullery maid opened her door - the last thing they wanted was to get into trouble for their snooping. The door creaked as it opened, and Trixie waited with baited breath to finally speak to the girl she’d been so obsessed with.

Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo let out a tired sigh before turning around, and she let out a cry when she saw the two newcomers. “Благость!”

“Oh, no, don’t be scared!” Trixie reassured her as the young blonde raised a hand to her quickly rising chest. “I only wanted to talk to you - I’ve been looking forward to meeting you since the moment I saw you arrive. Your name’s Yekaterina Petrovna Zamo, isn’t it?”

“Yekaterina…” she murmured, and then the brightest smile lit up her dirty face. “Katya! You call me Katya.”

“Is that your name?” Ginger asked, cocking her head. “Not Katherine?”

“No, not Katherine. Katya. Is small for Yekaterina.”

Ginger didn’t need to introduce herself - they must have met before. Trixie assumed Katya and Ginger had some degree of familiarity between them, seeing as they’d been living under the same roof for a while. With that in mind, she dove right in to making herself known to the curious little princess maid.

“Well, I’m Trixie. It’s… small for Beatrice,” Trixie explained, holding her hand out for Katya to shake it. She saw Papa doing it all the time when he met people - why shouldn’t she?

Katya was hesitant to take it. “No. Not proper.”

“It’s proper if I say it’s proper,” Trixie replied, and she took Katya’s hand and shook it whether she liked it or not. Katya smiled again, and Trixie was impressed with how shiny and white her teeth were. “You have a very pretty smile.”

“Thank you.” Katya raised a hand to her mouth and lightly touched it. “You, um, you have nice hair. Yellow. Pretty.”

As Trixie beamed under the praise, Ginger stepped forward, fed up with being left out of the conversation. “Kath- uh, Katya, do you like living in this room?”

She hung her head. “Not allowed to say.”

“It’s alright, I won’t tell Mama,” said Ginger, in a gentle tone Trixie often forgot she was capable of speaking in.

Katya looked sheepish as she answered. “No, I do not like. Too dirty and small. I used to have big house, like you.”

“Why are you a scullery maid then?” Trixie asked, cocking her head.

“I… I do not know. Aunt say I be taken care of here.”

Ginger posed another question, not seeming to notice that Katya was getting overwhelmed by them. “Is your aunt the woman who brought you here?”

“Yes. She took my watch. I wish I had it now.”

Trixie frowned, her heart going out to the poor girl. Abandoned in a foreign country, her precious possessions taken from her, forced to work under cruel mistresses and cooks. It was much too horrible to imagine, and Trixie hated to think how it would break Katya’s spirit terribly. Her hand drifted into her pocket to fiddle with her coin as she thought of how she could remedy Katya’s situation, and it was then that an idea came to her.

Granny always said she could buy anything with her Christmas sixpence…

“Your watch, was it very special to you?” Trixie asked, and Katya gave a sad nod.

“Very. It was precious, made of gold. Father gave me.”

Trixie took her little sixpence between her fingers and pulled it from her pocket, then held it out towards Katya. “I want you to have this. It’s a coin, and you could spend it if you liked. You might be able to buy a new watch to replace your old one, or something else that’s nice.”

Most of Trixie’s words seemed to go over Katya’s head, but she could recognise a gift when it was given to her. She was reluctant to take it at first, but when Trixie encouraged her to pluck it from her grasp, Katya did so eagerly. For a moment she simply stared at it, admiring the engraving on both sides and the slight glint of the metal. She then hastily stuffed it in the pocket of her apron, and she flashed another one of her dazzling smiles.

“Thank you, is very kind.”

“It’s quite alright,” Trixie said, her blonde curls bouncing as she nodded. “I should quite like to be friends - may I visit you again sometime?”

“I don’t know how often I’ll be able to sneak you down here, Trixie,” Ginger whispered, tugging at the pink sleeve of her dress.

But her comments went ignored by the two blondes, who were so enamoured with their newfound friendship that nothing else in the world could ever be more important. Not even the kerfuffle brewing upstairs.

#trixie mattel #pearl liaison #bendelacreme #ginger minj #katya zamolodchikova #trixya #1910s au #child #mary poppins au #diamonds in the rough #fannyatrollop #rpdr fanfiction #historical au

[themiscyra1983]

Fandom Trumps Hate

I’m doing it this year! I’ve committed to a pretty serious commissioned fic! It’s a good thing I’m wordy af!

Browsing week hasn’t OFFICIALLY opened yet, but you can view my listings here: https://fth2019offerings.dreamwidth.org/73290.html

I’m offering up two separate auctions. The first is for a commissioned fic in the 10k-20k word range, in the Disney, Harry Potter, or Twilight fandoms. (I have some flexibility beyond that, but I could only pick three fandoms unless I wanted to go with “Any,” and I am not prepared for “Any”.) The second is for beta reading services on fanfic or original fic, also in the 10k-20k word range.

The commissioned fic auction is explicitly for a story separate from the stuff I’m already working on. You’re welcome to ask for a story connected to or based upon As Dreams Are Made On/The Tempestverse or Out of the Blue, but it won’t necessarily be canon (depends on how much latitude you give me and how well it fits, really), and anyway there are rules specific to FTH I need to follow.

Fandom Trumps Hate work will take priority over everything else, once the winning donations are confirmed. I’d like to at least leave myself the option of doing this again next year, which means I have to make sure I do the work in a timely fashion. I hope you’ll understand if this means going on hiatus from my other work, but I’m already dealing with a fickle muse on my self-directed projects, so the odd hiatus is nothing new.

I’m excited! I hope you’re excited too! This is for good causes near and dear to my heart! Please consider bidding on my auctions, please poke around and consider bidding on others, and best of luck all around!

#fandom trumps hate #fanfic #fanfiction

[floraone]

Who is your favorite Sailor Moon character? And why? (And make it top five if you feel wordy ;))

I always feel wordy XD

But I have trouble with naming top favorites. In general. They are all my favorites. All of theeeeem. I love them all. Love is not a finite resource, and all, lol. But, I’ll can tell you my first 5 favorites that come to mind, in no particular order. Tho that’s not saying I’m not gonna miss anyone lol. Cause I will.

1) Usagi my fluffball my sister in bunnyshaped fluffball hearts. I love her. I learned a lot from her, growing up. People tell me I am like her. (And coincidentally, my last name, translated, means little carrot. So I feel that fits, lol) But yeah. The cheerful, positive, encouraging, optimistic bit, I can admit to. That is a lot like me. And then there is that giant heart of hers, that lets EVERYONE in, cause she, too, has a whole lotta love, and a whole lotta forgiveness on top of that. And I’m very, very proud that people liken me to this amazingly good, pure, clumsy, school-hating, lazy-when-it-doesn’t-count cinnamon-roll.

2) Mamoru. And with this I mean Manga!Mamoru. Yes, Anime!Mamoru I love too, of course, but not as much as smitten, adorable, dorky, glass-wearing, tux-in-the-middle-of-day wearing empathic, perfect Mamoru. This guy who’s gotten the worst, heartbreaking back-story written to him - I mean... an EMPATH. ALL. ALONE. OH. C’MON: So yes, poor lonely boi has a lot of my heart, cause I wanna hug him lots and give him his Usagi wrapped in a big red bow and make him happy.

3) Hotaru. Again with the breaking my heart backstory, I guess? But Hotaru was my favorite growing up. I had an imaginary friend when I was little - a couple years before Sailor Moon had hit, because that was the 90s and I’m 3 years older than the 90s - but she was a little girl with shoulder-length black hair who lived in a little dark room all alone. I dunno, lol, 3-4 yo me was a bit emo, I guess? ANywaY. So Hotaru fit that description perfectly, and I remember that elementaryschool!me with her Sailor Moon obsession just wanted to make her my friend so she wouldn’t be so alone anymore. I even cosplayed her once, when I was...10? 11? 12? Something like that. My mom made the costume and all.

4) Seiya. I waxed a whole post on him already and why he’s absolutely misunderstood and needs to be appreciated please poor little lovesick thing. But yeah, tbh, I think Seiya is a damn lot like Usagi? With a little bit of Mina mixed there for ambition? Goodhearted boy who’s quick to sacrifice himself for those he loves, cheerful af even when he JUST LOST HIS WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD, and doesn’t make a scene or move or anything at all when the girl he falls in love with doesn’t want him back (And yes, the roof top scene doesn’t count as a move, as I have made you all see as you clickety-clicked on my lengthy defense of him up there in the link ;) )

And the last one is hard. Cause I wanna name them all. Ami is my homegirl. In my opinion, I’ve got as much Ami bits in me as I have Usagi. Minako I will lurve lurve lurve for all her feminist and sex-positive ways for all the history of everything. THE TSUKINOS I LOVE THE TSUKINOS.

So I’ll go for someone who you won’t expect and who everyone always forgets.

5) Unazuki. (I mean c’MoNnn even Crystal forgot her - which is why she got a Crystal version from me.)That lovely, cheeky, adorable queen of gossip who I would have loved to be friends with, and which is why I include her in my fanfic so much lol.

Thank you for that aaaask, love

[xoamandafrances]

I have to say, my friends, I am wildly thankful for you. Through the hectic transitions, frustrating times, and most joyful experiences, I love and appreciate so deeply being able to come here and share my heart, truth and understanding with you. It means so much to me that you follow my work, tell me when my words impact you, watch my YouTube, read my very wordy emails lol, listen to my podcast, pour through my first book as I write it, or commit to a digital course or training bundle. People in personal development industry or online marking space complain a lot about the burden of creating free content and the nature of the never ending cycle of sharing on social media. I have never once felt that. I love to give to you every single day, whether you ever purchase an offer or not. For nearly nine years, I have made free content available every single day on the social medias. Nothing makes me happier. It's a great joy to write words and create content for you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for loving + reading + reviewing + watching + listening to my work. Thank you Team AF for supporting me so endlessly while I do the things. We have processed 20,000 paid transactions so far this year and have impacted more humans with free, inspirational content than I can even try to figure out how count. I love you. I love you. I love you. And I am wildly thankful. AND stay tuned tonight. I really jazzed up my Black Friday offer in a very cool way this year. Happy Thanksgiving 🍁🍽🦃 . All the love, . Amanda Pictured: Moments with family. PLUS waking up in my new bed for the first time. With all the transitions of renovations + constructions, I have been living in rooms other than the master. But, until the construction starts again on Monday + my family goes home... I am feeling the vibes of what it will be like to wake up in a finished house! (at West Hollywood) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5bdg9NHp93/?igshid=1w1qpmk8lkrmq