#I can’t imagine getting fanfic by mail lol

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Soft Epilogue

Prompt: Hear ye, hear ye, I humbly request from the fanfic goddess, a merlin fanfic of epic fluff proportions!! Lol I love your writing, can I request an Ace!Merlin and Ace!Arthur platonic love life bond?

Thanks for the request, babe! it seems fitting that on my birthday I get to upload a fic about ace qprs

Read on Ao3

Pairings: merthur qpr, implied morgwen 

Warnings: none my dudes

Word Count: 1807

In the end, there’s no big celebrations.

Oh, Camelot has a feast to end all feasts, but that’s not the point.

 There’s no big rushing into each other at the end of a hard-won fight, Arthur looking all stupidly heroic with his hair all sweaty or Merlin rippling with otherworldly power that makes men want to fall to their knees.

 There’s no kiss after years and years of pining finally being deforested—get it?

 “Shut up, Merlin.”

 “What, that was a good one!”

 “Merlin!”

 —alright fine, there’s no big kiss, there’s no music that swells romantically in the background—

 “Though not for lack of trying on your part, I’m sure.”

 “Will you shut up, you prat, and let me talk?”

 “It’s a wonder you ever stop talking.”

 —okay, look.

 It’s simple.

 It’s the end of a fight. Everyone’s exhausted. There are heavy pants and the scrape of steel on steel from the trodden corners of the battlefield, as soldier after soldier, knight after knight, falls to the ground in a heap. Some get back up. Some don’t.

 Arthur’s fingers fumble on the pommel of his sword. Huh. He needs to redo the grip on the left side. It’s fraying. His fingers are too clumsy. They won’t hold the damn thing properly. The chain mail keeps snagging where it’s come loose. He really needs to fix the grip.

 The sword sings quietly as it slides home, back into the sheath, away, away. His breath leaves him in a rush and he looks up, looking around, counting.

 Leon stands, already directing the survivors to start taking care of those they lost. He catches his king’s eye and nods. Once. Arthur nods back.

 Gwaine pushes his hair out of his eyes and makes a joke. It’s what he does best. As the desperate chuckles start up again, Arthur’s mouth quirks up in a smile. Gwaine catches it.

 Elyan strips the last of the shrapnel from someone’s wound and hauls them to their feet, a man of the people until his last. Arthur watches, paralyzed by the weight of the crown on his shoulders, as Elyan helps in ways he can’t.

 Percival stands. Shadows Arthur as they start to move through the field. The weight is a little easier to bear now, as his breath starts to sink back into his chest.

 Lancelot turns, smiles. Says ‘it’s good to see you,’ as if they’re just mates, running into each other after a long hard day. As if he’s about to buy Arthur a drink at the tavern and talk about the harvest, the new work from the blacksmith siblings, how much he misses looking up at the moon. Arthur just claps him on the shoulder.

 Everyone’s here. Except—

 “Arthur?”

 So there’s no dramatic turn, no big flourish. Time doesn’t slow to a standstill as they rush into each other’s arms. The bards would be so bored, there’s no dramatic confessions, no infamous realizations, no murmured apologies through the hurried meeting of lips. What would they have to sing about?

 Well, perhaps they could sing about this.

 Arthur turns, sees Merlin standing there. He smiles. Merlin smiles back. There’s a little cut on Merlin’s shoulder. Barely enough to graze through the tunic, but enough to draw blood. Arthur frowns, stalks forward, gently tips Merlin’s head to the side so he can have a look.

 “I’m fine, you prat.”

 “You’ve managed to injure yourself.”

 “Wasn’t me!”

 “Given how clumsy you are, I’d be surprised.”

 Arthur presses gently over the cut. It’s nothing more than a scratch, should close by the end of the day. And yet Merlin just rolls his eyes and lays his hand over it. A moment of golden light later and it’s like nothing ever happened.

 “There. Happy now?”

 “Mm.”

 Merlin sighs and moves his head back. Arthur doesn’t. For a moment, their foreheads rest together.

  Thank the heavens you didn’t die, I would’ve dragged you back here myself.

  Just so you could kill me?

  Obviously.

 That’s all. Don’t look so disappointed, there needn’t be more.

 Oh, alright.

 The ride back to Camelot is slow. There’s work to be done along the way, after all. There are people to tend to, knights to bury and mourn, families to tell. There are knights that return to Camelot only for their hands to shake too much, their eyes to go too glassy. These knights leave with the highest honors Arthur can give them, thanked sincerely for their service and the knowledge that the people will forever be in their debt.

 There are preparations to be made, hugs to give. Gwen throws herself into Elyan’s arms, Lancelot’s arms, Merlin’s arms, Arthur’s arms. Gaius isn’t far behind. Each of them breathes in the scent of the other. Home.

 “So you missed me?”

 “Of course I missed you!”

 “I’ve got your favorite waiting, Merlin.”

 “Thanks, Gaius.”

 “Oi! Why don’t I get a hug?”

 “Oh, fine, come here.”

 Arthur looks up to the top of the steps to see Morgana. No longer is she the intimidating figure cut from Camelot’s noble cloth, dressed up like Uther’s legacy, no. Just a simple dress, one of Gwen’s, her hair down around her shoulders in limp curls. If Arthur were someone else, he’d say she’d never looked better.

 “Don’t tell her that.”

 “I don’t need to, she knows.”

 “Merlin!”

 “What? She’s your sister.”

 She smiles, a little dimmer, a little warier, as she descends the steps and holds out her arms. Arthur doesn’t hesitate.

 His sister is here, finally recovered from her long fight with the magic Morgause wove through that horrid bracelet. Morgana hugs him back, tighter than they can imagine.

 “I’m glad to see you,” Arthur mumbles into her shoulder.

 “I’m happy you’re back.”

 Merlin joins them a moment later and Morgana pulls him in too, laughing at Arthur’s affronted face when Merlin squawks and his elbow digs unceremoniously into his ribs.

 “It hurt, you idiot.”

 “She pulled me!”

 “If you weighed more than a beanpole maybe that would help.”

 “My weight is just fine, thank you very much.”

 The feast is glorious. Food and wine flow freely out of the castle into the city below. The people dance, sing, yell, live. The city comes alive with the sound of its people. And that’s the end of the story.

 They won.

 They’re safe.

 They’re with the people they love.

 “You can’t just leave it there, Merlin.”

 “What happened to wanting to keep your privacy?”

 “Just—get on with it.”

 “Fine, you prat.”

 It’s not entirely over. There are still nights where Merlin wakes up and his fingers tingle so much it feels like they’re about to fall off. Nights where he swears he hears a low rumbling voice in the back of his mind, feels giant hands on strings grafted to his arms. Nights where he still feels like Destiny’s puppet, strung along without a second thought.

 There are still nights where Arthur can’t stop hearing the singing of steel and the weight of a sword in his hands. Nights when he can’t stop seeing Uther’s face, hearing his voice, seeing Morgana dead and twisted, broken on the ground. Nights when the flames rise high as knights—his knights—slaughter innocent people as part of a meaningless war.

 There are still nights when they think they can hear each other screaming.

 But Arthur is always there to roll over and wrap his arms tighter around Merlin. He’s here, he’s right here, and he’s warm, and nothing, nothing can take something away from Arthur once he’s decided it’s his. Merlin jolts awake to a cold nose pressed in the crook of his neck, sleepy declarations of ‘mine, my Merlin, go away, leave my Merlin alone, he’s mine, you can’t have him.’ Or it will be to tender words, gentle hands shaking him away, whispered promises of ‘you’re here, it’s alright, I’ll keep you safe, you did it.’

 And Merlin is always there when Arthur clenches the pillow so hard he looks like he’s going to break his fingers, there to gentle them away and pull him close, tuck his head under his chin and say ‘it’s over now, it’s safe now, they’re all safe, they’re all safe.’ Arthur wakes up to rough tunics, slim fingers woven through his own, the warmth of someone else who won’t ever leave. Or just the weight of an arm or leg thrown across his middle. It’s just enough to wake him up and realize that there is someone who, even in sleep, wants to hold him close.

 In the morning, Merlin will wake before Arthur does. The morning will ruffle along the edge of the curtains and he’ll shiver, hiding a little further under the covers. Arthur will hold him closer, unwilling to give up his heat source just yet. Some days, Merlin will let him, falling back asleep with his fingers carding through Arthur’s hair.

 But on most days, he carefully separates himself and tucks Arthur back up, pulling on his clothes and moving to get their breakfast set up. His fingers will brush a vase and a bouquet of flowers will bloom, one of the side effects of training with Morgana. He’ll smile and pick one out to give to Gwen.

 Arthur will wake slowly, first reaching out to feel where Merlin’s gone, then sitting up to spot him at the window, or the table, or right next to him, comb in hand. He’ll grumble, saying Merlin gets up too quickly, only for Merlin to laugh and pull him up to eat.

 The sun will rise through the curtains as they eat, get dressed, and leave to go about their days. The door will close softly behind them, waiting to open again once the day is over.

 There’s no furious declarations of love, no gritting of teeth as they fight to make the world change. Just slow, steady, constant. A touch of a hand here, a brush here. A knowing look or a quick jab. Nothing rough, just soft.

 They deserve a soft epilogue.

 “Hmm. Should’ve known you’d get all sappy.”

 “You like me sappy.”

 “I think I should go see Gaius, my teeth are starting to hurt.”

 “You love it.”

 “…maybe.”

 “Did Arthur Pendragon just admit I was right?”

 “Shut up.”

 “He did! He definitely did!”

 “Shut up, Merlin.”

 Morgana just rolls her eyes and wraps her arms around Gwen to watch the two of them bicker.

 “He’s right, though,” Gwen murmurs after a moment, leaning back to look up at her, “they do deserve a soft epilogue.”

 Morgana smiles. “I think we all do.”

 She’s right and she should say it.

#merthur fic #merthur #merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #arthur pendragon #fic #dragonbabbles #ace

[babbushka]

for the 'oh look, it's another fanfic writer ask game' can I ask for 8, 9 and 14? Also Mrs. Z hope you're having a lovely Wednesday! What's the sleepover movie tonight? -🥣

Thank you so much for asking! I hope you're having a great day too, the movie of the evening is of course Disney's Hercules! :)

8. if you got a computer virus that deleted all your fics but had just enough time to save one before they were wiped out, which fic would you pick and why?

OMG literally my biggest fear lol! I have literal hundreds of pieces of writing up here on the web, and I honestly can't imagine having to only choose one. I know it's such a lame answer, but I just can't. I love them all too much!

9. the “you got kudos“ e-mail is usually much appreciated, but is there a fic you wish you didn’t get these e-mails for? if so, which one and why?

Nope! Anything that I've posted is something that I'm proud of and love dearly. If I didn't like it, or thought it was cringe or bad, I'd delete it lol.

14. what trope would you refuse to write even if you were paid to do it?

Infidelity against the reader. Also please please don't accept money for fanfic that's how we get sued big time.

#🥣 #sleepover asks #<3333

[elixir448]

Good Girls 3x04 and 3x05 Disorganised Monster Post

Apologies in advance for the absolute mess this is going to be. I’ll start with 3x04 and try to keep it organised but it just...won’t be. And yeah, I made all the Dean sections about Beth and Rio. Bite me.

Mick

I. Am. In. Love. With. This. Man. I’m sorry but when he rolled down his window and said “good morning”, my jaw hit the ground. His voice is unreal. Does everyone in Rio’s gang have an amazing voice? Is it a requirement for joining? What is this sorcery?

I also get a kick out of the fact that he is so polite and charming with people that he doesn’t really know, just like Rio. I can’t help but think that they must have grown up together to be so similar in that way. Also, Mrs Karpinski and Mick. I would like to see more of them.

Beth and Dean (Did I make this section all about Beth and Rio? I may have.)

I think @pynkhues has already mentioned this and I totally agree with it. That Dean just works as a character so much better in humourous scenes, like when he’s purchasing a gun. I think the last time I laughed so much at a scene with Dean in it was at the end of 2x07, when he’s interacting with the krav maga instructor.

The moose analogy was hilarious and, I’m not gonna lie, I hope Dean sticks around in the story just so we can get more outsider POV of Beth and Rio’s relationship, because it is genuinely one of my favourite things in the show and to read about in fanfic. And Dean, Rio does not “have his way” with ‘your wife’; she wouldn’t be such a pain in his ass if he did. He did this in 3x05 as well, where he referred to Beth as “something you love”. She’s not an object that people can love or have their way with.

I am convinced that Dean’s gun will be utilised within the story at some point, although whether it will be used by him is up for debate.

When he walks into the house with the gun and ignores Beth’s questions about about it, only answering when she becomes more insistent, I was struck by the childhishness of Dean’s character.

Let me articulate this for a second.

Let’s compare this scene to the way Dean acts in 2x07, when he refuses to watch the kids after Jane’s dance show and immaturely lashs out at Beth saying that he’s going to book club. It’s not even about putting her in her place. It’s simply petty and it’s childish because their is no goal aside from temporarily annoying her. Just like in this scene. He walks into the house with a huge gun on his shoulder, in a clear attempt to seek attention but then ignores her questions and it comes across as petty and childish; in both scenes, he is akin to a child who can feel that the attention of their parent is wandering and so seeks attention by being as loud and annoying as possible.

There is no back and forth in Beth and Dean’s relationship at all. When Beth dumps cash on Dean and tells him that he doesn’t know her in 1x06, when she ignores his questions at the beginning of 1x07 and tells him to take the kids to Disneyland, she was putting him in his place because, really, he deserved it. When she took away his power in the dealership and he became a house-husband, she was putting him in his place after finding out about his multiple affairs. When Dean takes her kids from her, he was trying to put Beth in her place, essentially saying See. I know you. You’re nothing without our children. 

This is all very different from the back and forth in Beth and Rio’s relationship. Importantly, even though Beth and Rio are always trying to get a leg over each other (metaphorically and often physically haha) and even though they do try and sweep the rug out from one another, it’s less about wielding power over the other person than it is about wielding power over each other (I know what I mean in my own head lol). It’s that they enjoy it when the other person gets a leg over them, they enjoy the heated looks and even enjoy the gleefulness from the other person. It’s all a part of their process. Even when Beth and Rio seek attention from one another (Beth taking the pills from the cars and Rio mailing her body parts), it’s less about the end result of having the other person’s attention focused on them or having power over them; it’s more about imagining how they they will look, how they will feel, how they will react when they find out. All of it’s important. It’s all foreplay.

Also, it was one bullet Dean. Not a full clip.   

Before Dean kisses Beth, he says “We were so good with him gone.” Honestly, that line felt like the 100th nail in the coffin haha. Dean just doesn’t get Beth and he doesn’t understand that there is a lack of emotional intimacy in their relationship. He hasn’t picked up on the fact that she’s actually experienced a regression on a personal level; she’s wrapped herself up in the comfort of her familiar life, with her kids, her house and her husband only after Rio’s death. The only reason he felt they were good was because they were having sex, even if it was for all the wrong reasons on Beth’s part. Even then, he classes it as good because it was sex with him.

The reality is that all this matters less than the simple truth, which is that Rio isn’t gone anymore. He’s back. And Dean knows, as stupid as he is, that it’s only a matter of time.

As for the scene where Dean kisses Beth. Here are all the ways it contrasts Beth and Rio’s kiss in 2x09 (all the ways I can think of anyway). Sorry. Not sorry.

I’d like to point out that Dean walks exactly 3 steps towards Beth, before stopping and taking her jacket from her. The same number of steps that Beth took towards Rio in her bedroom. The same number of steps that Rio took towards Beth. And notably, the same number of steps that Beth did not take towards Dean in this scene.

Yes, Beth kissed Dean back and participated in the kiss itself. But she did not participate at all in the lead-up which is, arguably, just as important. When Beth kissed Rio, the mutual nerves, tenderness and affection were a huge part of the scene. In other words, the lead-up was just as important as the kiss itself. That was very much lacking here. I suppose one could argue that this is not Beth and Dean’s first kiss but it certainly is their first on-screen kiss and presumably the first kiss they have shared in a long time. For all intents and purposes, it should be like a ‘first kiss’ because it’s their first kiss after all the betrayals, lies and disdain.

This scene, like Beth and Rio’s, takes place in daylight but, it’s different in basically every other way. Dean grabs Beth and sort of positions her head to directly face him. When Beth leaned in to kiss Rio in her bedroom, he angles his head just right and very slighly inches his head closer. For her. Beth doesn’t even do that for Dean. He leans in and kisses her and she doesn’t actually do anything to make that easier for him, nothing to indicate that she wants him to.

The music also sounds very...young, for lack of a better word. Almost high school. I think that was a very purposeful choice, given that this is the first on-screen kiss between Beth and Dean. In this scene, I definitely saw them more as they probably were when they were in high school, before they got married. There was a notable lack of any music in the scene where Beth and Rio kiss. Honestly, the scene just didn’t need any.

Christina was amazing here. After Dean releases her, her head kind of just disappointedly falls away and she opens her eyes and looks a little bit...defeated. Perhaps because she didn’t feel more or enjoy the kiss. Because it was Dean. And god, then the scene cuts to Rio coming into Paper Porcupine and the most sexually loaded, non-sex scene in the history of television....although every one of Beth and Rio’s scenes feels that way to be honest. The fact that the episode ended here, on a climactic note when Rio scrutinises the money Beth finishes making, says a lot.

The Hills (including 3x05)

I LOVED this storyline. It’s such a great way of exploring the way that Ruby’s guilt over committing crimes has gradually transitioned into a lack of guilt for the crimes that she has become ‘used to’, i.e: robberies, lying. It’s also such a great callback to a common theme in this show, “All this stuff you think you’re keeping from them. You’re not”. The fact that this was said by Ruby in season 1 and is once again coming full circle is peak writing. Also, this means that another one of my hiatus wishes has come true, that the kids would find out more or be suspicious of their parents. I wondered if it would be Kenny, Sadie or Sara who would catch on. Looks like it’s Sara. Lidya Jewett was the perfect one of the children to explore this through because she is such an amazing actress and Sara’s already had an introduction to this arc, due to Stan being arrested in the last season and her having to grapple with the fact that he did indeed commit a crime.

And look, I am the last person who wants to see Ruby and Stan fight. But I think it’s such an important arguement for them to have. Not the fact that Ruby’s committing crimes but the fact that she seems so comfortable with it now and that this is potentially becoming a model for learned behaviour for their children. The only people they love more than each other are their children.

Lidya Jewett did such a great job portraying the audaciousness and the brattiness of a teen when they are confronted by a parent calling out their behaviour. The tit for tat between Sara and Ruby was amazing. Like nuh uh, you may be right about the shady ass stuff I’ve been up to but I’m still the queen in this house. So now you owe me.

I also love the idea that Beth and Ruby have learnt so much from crime-ing. In 3x02, Beth taught Annie a lesson about how they had to deal with the mover ASAP or all the criminals in Detroit would know that they were pushovers. In this episode, Ruby teaches Sara that when you lie once, you need to know that you’ll be lying a dozen more times just to uphold your original story. It’s never over.

In 3x05, I was like why u do dis? I love this storyline and I don’t think that Stan will leave Ruby but god, the idea that Ruby is so terrified of it in Beth’s van, and for good reason, is actually scaring me. The stills from 3x07 and the hints Reno gave that we would find out how Stan feels about Beth have me shaking. I’m so excited but scared at the same time.

Annie

This is probably the first episode where I felt as though Annie’s therapy storyline really found its feet. I’m going to ignore the fact that retinoblastomas mainly only occur in children. Aside from that, it really found its feet haha.

I also just loved the humour of Annie’s scenes in this episode. Mae Whitman is amazing and her delivery is always fantastic. I genuinely think that her long-winded speech in the pawn shop about how she spent her night is one of my favourite comedic moments of the season so far. What a great callback to Annie’s gazelle run when she’s chasing down Mary Pat!

Oh god. When she was asking Dr Cohen about what was going on between them, I was physically cringing because I knew she was going to smash into a brick wall. It was painful to watch. Stop gal, stop.

It was also painful to see Dr Cohen ruthlessly lay out Annie’s psychological coping mechanisms in front of her, partly because it was coming from a place of genuine concern and care and she knew it.

Beth and Rio (Will I ever write a reasonable amount in this section? Nope.)

Gosh, the entire scene leading up to Beth and Rio in the bar and that scene in itself was peak television. Suspenseful, intense, a good back and forth between characters with unbelievable chemistry. I genuinely think that this is one of the scenes in the show that best depicts the ‘dark’ in dark comedy and the ‘drama’ in dramedy, which are usually the genres used to describe the show.

I don’t know what everyone else views as their favourite ‘dark’/’dramatic’ moments in the show? Their are many scenes which I feel really capture the themes above but some of them are:

1. 1x04 - When the girls hear a thump from the bedroom Eddie’s recovering in and they run upstairs only for him to confront them with a gun.

2. 1x06 - Boomer plants drugs in Annie’s locker, Beth dumps bags of cash on Dean.

3. 1x07 - Rio and his boys confront the girls in Beth’s house.

4. 1x09 - Beth and Rio’s first break-up scene in 1x09.

5. 1x10/2x01 - “If you wanna be the king, you gotta kill the king.”

6. 2x07 - Beth and Rio argue in the alley.

7. ....you get the point. Maybe I should write a separate post all about this?

Now this bar scene (3x04) and the entire sequence with Rio, Lucy, his boys and the girls at paper porcupine and outside the van (3x05) are included on my list of amazing ‘dark’/’dramatic’ scenes.

I’d also like to acknowledge the piano music in this scene, which is also present during the scene in Paper Porcupine in 3x05, while Rio waits patiently for Lucy to complete her counterfeit money design. It’s a stunning piece of music and it adds so much suspense to the scenes. I hope it’s released at some point!  

First of all, we have Beth and Dean lying in bed. Everything about this screams that Dean is intruding, from his loud snores, to the way he’s leaning so far into her side of the bed, to the way that Beth is looking out of her French doors, away from him, and clearly thinking about what she’s going to do with regards to Rio. I spoke about this in my 3x02 thoughts post but ever since Beth and Rio began orbiting around one another, ever since their fascination with one another began (god, basically from the beginning), Dean has been consistently displayed as intruding on their relationship, despite the fact that he and Beth are still technically married and he’s always ranting about how Rio is wrecking and ‘intruding’ in on their lives. Beth and Rio have always had a tangible intimacy that’s unbelievably loud in their relationship, even before they slept together. It always feels like any voices aside from their own, any person besides them is an intrusion when they’re together or thinking about eachother.

Beth lies in bed, next to Dean, and thinks about Rio before running away from her husband and her house to see him under the cover of darkness. It feels intimate and loaded with implications. It’s absolutely driven by fear and her desire to survive but the set-up of the scene is inherently romantic. It’s akin to someone sneaking out to see their lover whom they’re having an affair with.

I could wax poetic about how much I love this scene in its entirety. When Good Girls is good, it’s fucking good. The way that Beth is frightened and then annoyed with Mick for saying something behind her when she’s the one running around at ridiculous o’clock, the imposing figure he cuts as he smokes, the way he considers her. Just. All. Of. This. I love all of Beth and Rio’s scenes, including the ones that take place during the day. But gosh, there’s just something about the scenes that take place in the dark that I find dangerous and addictive.

Rio walks into his bar, briefly nods at the bartender and greets Mick. But as soon as he sees Beth, he can’t look away from her. He doesn’t look at Mick as they clasp hands, his lips part and stay that way as he looks at her AND if you look closely, for a brief second, he stands taller and very slightly pushes his shoulders back before walking towards her.

While they are sitting at the bar together, Rio is depicted as exhausted and conflicted. This shot is stunning:

Their conversaion is so well done. Rio sceptically eyeing Beth’s finished drink and only suggesting that she slow down when she asks for a shot of tequila, his hand gently coming down on top of hers, the way he looks at her as he waits for an answer. It’s such a stark contrast to the way Dean treats her. Even now, after everything.

“One for my baby daddy here too.” SCREAMS. OMG BETH. I adore her.

God. The acting. Beth’s face when she looks at Rio after saying “I lost it”, a sort of confused and hesitant realisation that he looks affected by it, by her words. I still waver on whether or not Rio believed that Beth was indeed pregnant. To sum up what I think is going through Rio’s mind in this scene:

1. He has no reason at this point to doubt the words of Rhea’s OBGYN. In other words, it’s entirely possible that following the appointment, he grappled with the idea that Beth was pregnant with his child, conceived during an encounter fraught with emotions in her bedroom and before she shot him three times. It’s possible that he forced himself to be pragmatic, process it and accept it, only for Beth to suffer a miscarriage. There’s a feeling of mourning in the way that Rio regards Beth with his hand over his mouth, the quiet, sensitive way in which he asks when it happened, the way he looks at his palms on the bar counter, the way he tosses back the shot of tequila.

2. The loss of the pregnancy ultimately means that he’s lost the one reason, the single excuse he had to keep Beth alive. I don’t doubt that he could have killed her in the moments when he first saw her again, after the time he spent simmering, plotting and remembering. But now she’s under his skin again. God, she never even left but now she’s probably curled up somewhere inside of him all over again. It’s so obvious in the way that he says “nothing good” that he doesn’t want to kill her, that he’s tired and doesn’t want to even think about it anymore.

Following this, the writers did an amazing job with the back and forth between Beth and Rio in this scene. Beth is desperate and yet so audacious in suggesting that Rio needs money, that he should take another chance on her. I love her when she’s like this, when she’s clawing and doing her best to survive. And the way that Rio huffs an unamused laugh through pursed lips, almost as though he’s thinking, shit I’m doing this again aren’t I? I’m letting her talk? Except we all know she’s not talking him into anything. He’s just looking for an excuse. If anything, to me, he seems unamused with the traitorous part of himself that is listening to her for the sole reason of avoiding the necessity of killing her.

“You couldn’t afford it.” What a backhanded compliment. Rio can’t place a price on Beth’s head because even he struggles to deal with what her personal worth is to him, what she actually means to him, so I love that he ultimately just caves and throws out an arbitrary $100K which is much less than he has previously requested from her. I also love that Beth just focuces purely on the money and ignores the true implications of what he’s saying because it’s too much, it’s too loaded and neither of them have ever been able to contend with whatever’s between them, this thing that is indescribable.

As for the final scene of the episode. I don’t know if I can rationally articulate my thoughts on this but I’m going to do my best.

First of all, I love the idea of Beth and Rio watching each other when the other person isn’t aware of it. So when Rio enters paper porcupine and slowly walks towards her while Beth is rifling through items, unaware that he’s behind her, it just does something to me. I love it.

Also, I love the way they almost circle one another until Beth stops on the other side of the table in between them. They are so often depicted to be standing across from one another. Forever waiting for the day where they stand side by side against a common enemy.

When Rio alludes to Beth doing some custom-printing for him and she immediately catches on, she looks at him with her big, blue eyes and her voice is so feminine when she says “I don’t know what you’re talking about”. God, you can’t convince me Rio isn’t into that.

I’m not going to talk about the music too much just because this is getting too long and the fandom is already obsessed with the song anyway. The lyrics are a complete revelation and the song was, of course, purposefully chosen. I loved the entire song and the implications for Beth and Rio’s relationship but one part I particularly love:

“Though we sleep in different beds You still keep me up at night”

God, Beth lay awake next to Dean, thinking of what she was going to say to Rio, before running away to see him. There’s no way Rio doesn’t lie awake at night and think about Beth. I. Just. Can’t. This is already getting too long.

The youtube video that went up for this scene sums it up pretty well. Rio really does look pretty mesmerised by Beth in this scene. She looks at him apprehensively because she’s afraid of him and fearful for her operation but she keeps doing it because he makes her nervous, because she likes looking at him, because she likes it when he watches her, because she feels something for him and it’s all just too much because he’s watching her, just like he always has but she’s never gotten used to it. GAHHHH.

I also just love interpreting this scene after watching 3x05, when Dean says twice that Beth is “something you (Rio) love”. Beth refutes that at the end of the episode, saying Rio loves money. But here we have all three things, Beth, Rio and money in one scene. And yes, Rio’s watching Beth make money but he also can’t look away from her.

Just look at this shot. Beth and Rio facing each other, as they often do, at equal heights, with the money symbolically positoned between them. It’s not just something that separates them though. It’s something they share if that makes sense. It’s something they both care about but you can care about more than one thing.

And looks like Rio found another excuse to keep her alive. I mean, he had already found one, by demanding 100K but this is now something he can directly participate in and benefit from. Something long-term that keeps them tied together, rather than a one-off payment. He just can’t help himself, can he? They can’t let each other go.

I don’t know where else to put this. But seeing Beth wearing glasses was...life-changing.

Moving on to 3x05.

The Opening Scene and Mick

STOP SAYING GOOD MORNING AND STOP TALKING. DON’T SAY ANYTHING. I CAN’T DEAL WITH YOUR VOICE MICK.

Ahem. We also met more of Rio’s boys which means another one of my hiatus wishes came true. I’m really curious to meet Rio’s bosses, who Manny has said we will learn more about in this season, and what the debts he needs to repay are, which he alluded to in the sneak peek from 3x06 (THE ANGST). I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that we was out of the game for so long or maybe because people have found out that he fed Turner names, or both?

I love smart Beth. Taking the plates used to make the counterfeit money as a precautionary measure was really important but also just...kind of tragic. I’m going to talk more about this later (see Paper Porcupine and the Shooting).

Also, how freaking loaded was that scene where Beth tries to pay Mick to buy more time? When she said “what if I made it up to you?”, my jaw dropped. Not even exaggerating. And when he said “it’d be a huge order”, I straight up scream-cackled. This 100% backs up the idea that Beth is legitimately the most oblivious person in the world and would totally get into a bunch of awkward situations just because she’s misunderstood somebody else or because she’s said something sexual without even realising it. I. Require. All. That. Fanfic.

I completely agree with @foxmagpie here. I just don’t think that Mick has or will betray Rio. 100K is a relatively small sum of money, given the context. We know that Rio only asked this of Beth because it was an excuse to avoid killing her. For Mick, this is nowhere near enough money to risk his life or his position as (presumably) Rio’s right hand man. And let’s be honest, in the crime world, who are you going to place your bet on? Beth or Rio? I know who I would choose.

Annie 

I freaked when I saw Kevin again because I didn’t expect him to show up after 3x01 but there you go! I genuinely love this though because I didn’t think he was homeless and it just shows you that you really can’t know what’s going on in someone’s life until they tell you. It really hit me hard when he said “I’m experiencing homelessness” because it could happen to anyone. It really reminded me of a news article I read about, about individuals who are homeless but aren’t necessarily sleeping on the streets; instead, they are couch surfing or sleeping in their cars but they feel as though they have no stability, no place they can call their own and as though they have been forgotten about by society.

This show is so good at introducing tertiary characters!

Dean, The Fish and “Something you love” (Did I make this about Beth and Rio again? You’re goddamn right I did.)

So, I’m assuming the three dead fish are symbolic of Beth, Ruby and Annie. The fact that Dean was responsible for killing them is, I feel, more symbolically indicative of the consequences of him breaking the plate in this episode alone. I actually think that when Beth says “How much did you feed them?” and Dean replies “Too much”, this is more indicative of the over-arching plot for the season and really the whole show. The idea that greed, money, and for Beth, the rush, are going to be what ultimately hurts them and potentially lead them to their ruin.

Dean really pissed me off in this scene. I was clutching my head and cursing him. Every little thing pissed me off, from the way that he slammed the drawers shut, to the way he held the plate higher up, to his slighted masculinity when he said “he didn’t waste any time, did he?” Even though he knows that Beth has been willingly involved in crime, he continues to completely underestimate her. He just assumes that Rio offers up opportunities and Beth can’t resist. He cannot wrap his mind around the concept of Beth coming up with ideas and executing them; if anything, it’s Rio who can’t resist.

I gasped when Dean said “something you love”. I think this has been very controversial in the fandom. @foxmagpie answered an ask and wrote a brilliant analysis here, which I would highly recommend reading. Following the season 2 finale, I answered an ask here about Beth and Rio’s feelings for one another and I feel a little bit vindicated write now, not because I think I’m right (their feelings are so complex and completely up for interpretation at this stage) but because I agreed with my initial assessment.

I think some people might be tempted to write off what Dean said as inaccurate, simply because it’s Dean who said it. Dean is often an unreliable narrator when it comes to Beth and Rio’s relationship. His view is tainted by jealousy, misogyny and the need to take ownership over Beth as his wife again. However, he did manage to catch on to the fact that Rio treats Beth differently (Rio flaunting the relationship he has with Beth in front of Dean in 1x10/2x01), that Beth slept with Rio and was using him as a poor replacement (2x06), that Beth and Rio have a relationship that is more than just sex (before Beth brutally emasculated him by saying she just really likes having sex with Rio in 2x11). In season 2, he did eventually see that, fundamentally, Beth and Rio are addicted to one another. So, I don’t think we can write off what Dean is saying in 3x05.

As for whether or not I think Rio is in love with Beth.

I need to explain the way that I view love, in the capacity that we use it to describe the feelings that an individual can have for another person. I find myself consistently surprised by the number of people around me who talk about emotions as being incredibly complex but then act as though you either love something or you don’t or, when it comes to romantic relationships on screen, if it isn’t love then it can only be lust or desire or an obsession. Personally, I view love as a spectrum emotion and I actually think most people view it in the same way, that you can feel varying degrees and intensities of it. It sounds obvious and that’s because it totally is. As an example, I think it’s absolutely possible to be a little bit in love with someone.

So, there’s a diagram I remembered from one of my lectures and I think it’ll help me articulate the way I view Beth and Rio’s feelings for one another. The short answer is that I thought they were a little in love with one another in the second half of season 2 and I actually still agree with that but I think it’s been buried under an avalance of trauma and betrayal.

Of course, I’m not going to include the original image from my lecture (which depicts the spectrum and crossover of mood and psychotic disorders) but here’s a stock image that depicts a similar idea:

Now, I think the obvious way to look at this is to stick love on one side and hate on the other, as they are classically considered to be ‘opposing’ emotions, and then something neutral like indifference in the middle.

Personally, I agree with the idea that indifference is the opposite of love and so I’d like to place indifference on one end, hate in the middle and love on the other end, especially when it comes to considering Beth and Rio’s relationship. I’d justify placing hate in the middle because it is an intense emotion, whereas indifference is literally nothing and these two have never been indifferent towards one another, no matter how much time Rio spends on his phone when he’s with Beth. The way I see it, Beth and Rio rapidly slide up and down the part of the spectrum between love and hate and those emotions never have time to settle so that they can be acknowledged as one or the other.

(sorry this is so bad)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, even at this point in their relationship, the majority of viewers cannot point to the middle of this spectrum and say that Rio definitively hates Beth or vice versa. Nor can we point at love and say the same. I don’t even think we could point vaguely in between. I’d personally be continuously sliding my finger up and down the spectrum between those two points.

I think Manny worded it perfectly in his interveiew, “They hate each other but want to be each other. They hate each other but want to be with each other.”

Lucy, Paper Porcupine and The Shooting

I’m going to just put this in here because this scene was so dark (and very well done in my opinion). But Rio is such a little shit! Look at his face after antagonising Beth:

God sake. Check yourself Rio. Your boys, Ruby and Annie are all watching and it’s so obvious that you’re like straight up thinking about your crush.

Even though I loved the fact that Beth thought ahead and took the plates, upon rewatching the episode it all felt so futile and painful. It really felt like so many of the Beth’s actions took Lucy to that moment. I know we’re all thinking the same thing, that Dean unknowingly triggered all of this when he broke the plate. But the reality is that even if Dean hadn’t broken the plate, it’s likely that Rio would have eventually gone straight to the source of the design. From the moment Beth chose to bring her into this, Lucy’s fate was sealed. It’s heartbreaking.

I absolutely agree with @sothischickshe when she said that Beth knew that something was going to go down. She looks at Lucy so much in this scene, with fear, with guilt but also with an almost intuitive grief. I don’t think she knew that Rio was going to kill her but I do think she had a feeling or a thought clawing at the back of her mind, that something terrible was going to happen to Lucy.

Rio orders Beth to go with Lucy, telling her to “be smart”. He still has Ruby and Annie with him and he knows that Beth would never abandon them. He makes her choose between Lucy and Ruby & Annie in this scene; when she chooses not to ask Mrs Harris for help, when she chooses to beg Lucy not to finish the plate rather than telling her to run out of the store, she is essentially choosing Ruby & Annie.

So much of this scene was about Rio punishing Beth for what she has done, by taking what she had built, ordering her to go with Lucy and forcing her to share in the responsibility of what was about to happen. Because he hasn’t been able to kill her and he knows he’ll never be able to. But I also think it was about proving a point to Beth and here’s why.

Beth shot Rio for many reasons but a lot of it was about the situation she had been placed in and the pressing need to just do something in the ‘heat of the moment’. She has never been able to kill any of her rotten eggs when she had time to plan how to do it. Even when she hit Boomer in the back of the head in 1x01, it is was in the ‘heat of the moment’. She is bound by the moral barrier that separates a murder (i.e: intent, sometimes premeditated) from voluntary manslaughter (i.e: when provoked, in the moment.) I know Beth shot Rio two more times after the initial thought and I may write another post all about that. But now is not the time. For all intents and purposes, Beth cannot kill someone after definitively making that decision in advance.

Something that I’m so struck by with the sequence in Paper Porcupine is how long it is. It’s obviously this long to build tension but it really highlights to me the length of time Rio had to consider his options and decide what he was going to do. Even the scene outside the van was long; he had time to back out of killing Lucy but, unlike Beth, he did not balk. And because of that, he proved to Beth that he can do it all.

He’s basically saying look, I can kill someone before they even have the chance to go rotten.

Obviously, we know that Beth is Rio’s rotten egg and Rio knows it too (that’s why he’s punishing Beth in this scene). But Beth has never allowed herself to believe it. She thinks it’s all about the money.

Oh god. Don’t even get me started on the implications of Rio grabbing Lucy’s hand to help her into the van and looking over at Beth as he says “ma girl”. Yes, we get it Rio. Beth’s your girl.

@pynkhues​  pointed out that Rio has a kind of honeytrap language that Beth is starting to recognise and you can just tell from the way that Beth closes her eyes that she knows the situation is escalating and that something is imminently going to happen.

This scene is so interesting when you stop and pause and just look at Beth and Rio’s faces. Because Beth is desperately trying to justify why Rio should keep them alive. She keeps looking at his face and then prompting Ruby and Annie to speak and answer her questions, so she can prove their worth. And then, at the very end, she sort of tacks Lucy on as an afterthought and it’s just tragic. It was over for Lucy already but, even so, Beth basically gave a speech about their value vs Lucy’s value.

And I totally agree with everyone else. Rio did not look like he was being convinced by what Beth was saying at all. I mean, he definitely had heart-eyes (haha, they’re both idiots) but he didn’t look like he was really considering what she was saying, rather he seemed more like he was impressed by what he was seeing, almost falling into the habit of staring at her as intensely as he always has. He was definitely just letting her talk so he could put a bullet in Lucy and deal with someone in front of his boys and the girls.

Rio

We already knew this but Manny and the writers have really doubled down on how charming, personable and downright sinister Rio can be as a character. His smiles come easily when he’s questioning the mover in 3x04 and interacting with Lucy, he jokes around with them and exerts an effortless control over both situations.  Perhaps even more importantly, his smiles are real in these moments. It’s become very obvious that Rio enjoys it all. It’s fun for him. Just like Beth, he gets a kick out of crime and is pretty unhinged.

As for him shooting Lucy, a completely innocent woman whom he knew Beth had dragged into this. Well, I agree with what a lot of people have already said; I think it was in character. I mean, this is the man who sat and messed about on his phone while his boys waiting on the order to kill the girls in 1x02. This is the guy who killed Eddie, somebody he presumably knew well considering the fact that Eddie only called his mum aside from Rio. This is the guy who shot Dean, who we as an audience hate but who really had nothing to do with Beth’s plot to have Rio arrested. This is the guy who didn’t just have Agent Turner killed but a slew of other FBI agents. Interestingly, of all these characters, the only one aside from Lucy who was unwittingly brought into the crime world was Dean and Rio still shot him. I don’t think this was an attempt on the writers’ parts to make us hate Rio because let’s be honest, the vast majority of us will continue to love his character and they know it. This is who he is and none of us can lie to ourselves anymore. I think that’s good.

The Ending

I loved it! Annie seeking comfort from the people they love, the people who support them. And Beth not being able to do that. God, she looks exhausted and two seconds from falling to pieces in that last scene and Dean is such a narcissist that he can’t see it. All he cares about is Rio, not the effect all of this is having on Beth.

When Beth says that she also really hates being around Rio again and Dean questions her, “really?”, it’s the only thing he can focus on when it comes to her. Like once Rio stuck his dick inside Beth, she wasn’t just her anymore, she was only a person with relation to Rio. Ewwwww Dean. Go away.

Also, it’s so telling that Beth couldn’t repeat herself when Dean questioned her. God, even after Rio ordered Mick to shoot Lucy, she can’t lie about it. She’s such a good liar but, in this scene, she’s so exhausted that she can’t even put in the effort.

God, Christina was amazing. Her watery blue eyes, her forced smiles and pained expressions. I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart when Max said “except for you” and that Beth was Lucy’s only friend. I feel terrible for Max and completely agree with Lucy! He is totally awesome.

#nbc good girls #i'm sorry this is so long

[spearfeld]

So I just finished Love, Creekwood

Some spoiler-filled thoughts under the cut!

tl;dr 4/5, it was super cute but I was confused about some things and didn’t think everything worked

Overall, I liked it. It was cute as fuck, and it was nice getting to see the squad again. I have some good to say about it, some bad, and then just some...questions. Let’s start with the good:

Becky’s writing style is as cute and as charming as ever. There were multiple parts of the book that had me laughing out loud, even if maybe not as strongly as I did while reading Simon, Leah, and watching Love Simon and Victor. Drunk Simon makes a reappearance, and it is everything. EVERYTHING. I love that boy so much and he only gets more adorable when he drinks lol.

I love the whole theming of “save states” and wanting to keep moments forever and go back to them, and the idea of holding onto the past. That’s a really unique way of tackling an interesting topic, and I love it quite a bit.

And this isn’t really a bad thing, sort of just an observation, but when Plot Things started happening, it really shocked me, because I forgot that books are supposed to have a plot lmfao. Maybe it is a bit of a criticism, but the reason that surprised me so much is because up until conflict started arising, it really was feeling just like supplemental material, just some cute fluff, the kind of stuff I would go on ao3 to read fanfic about. That’s not necessarily a bad thing--it is very cute and very fluffy and very fun to read--but books do need conflict, even short 100-page novellas told entirely through e-mails.

That being said, the conflict is definitely an interesting one. Long-distance relationship stories are nothing new, of course, but this kind of conflict was teased at the end of Leah on the Offbeat, and I think it’s handled mostly well, narratively. I especially like the contrast between Simon and Bram’s relationship trying to manage long-distance, and Leah and Abby’s who are literally living together and could not be closer if they tried (except Abby does, lol, by suggesting they push their beds together, which, cute).

I’m not entirely sure the e-mail format entirely works for this story. It’s serviceable enough--Becky does a really good job at filling in blanks without spelling everything out for us, with a few exceptions that we’ll get to later--but the e-mails don’t lend themselves to enough character insight, and I found myself getting kind of lost through some of it.

For example, the main “plot” of Love, Creekwood is that Simon and Bram are struggling in their long-distance relationship (did Becky read The Whole Story, should I be pursuing legal action? /s), and that much is apparent through Simon’s e-mails with Bram, but when Simon e-mails Abby and Leah, it seems like he’s worked things out. But then Leah and Abby have their own correspondence where they’re like, “I’m worried about Simon.” And I was like...why? Oh I guess he was trying to make things seem better than they were? Okay, that didn’t super come across in the e-mail. So it was hard to tell what was actually going through the characters’ heads during the story at times. 

But trying to change the story from an e-mail format to a prose format with e-mails like the first Simon book would have taken more time and effort, and I know that Becky probably didn’t want to spend more effort than necessary on a project like this--she’s said on multiple occasions that Leah was the last book in the Simonverse and that she didn’t want to write any more books featuring Simon. I definitely think she was excited about writing this book and getting to spend time with these characters again, but I think digging them up for a full-length novel just wasn’t something she was interested in doing. I can’t blame her for this, either. She spent years in the Simonverse. Simon was her debut, and her next two books were directly related to it in some way--one being a sidestory featuring characters from Simon, and the other being a direct sequel. It’s easy to get burnt out on a world when you spend so much time involved in it, and I think Becky wanted to work on different things. So, for what it’s worth, I think this is probably the best form of this book that we could have gotten.

Also, very tiny nitpick but it was hard to see who was writing who sometimes, since all of the e-mail addresses tended to blur together sometimes, particularly in the group messages, and I think that if Becky wasn’t so dead-set on “e-mails are the thing it has to be e-mails!!” then she could have gotten away with making that an actual group chat/text and it would have read a lot cleaner.

Those are the only real negatives I can say about it, unless you count these questions I have as negatives, which, I kind of count them as half-negatives because they’re not inherently bad things, and I think ambiguity was the intent here, but it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Maybe this will change the more I think about the book, but regardles:

What actually happened between Simon and Bram? What’s going on with them? We spend a lot of their e-mails talking about how much they miss each other, and then there’s the whole weird Birthday/Marriage Proposal thing. And we never actually get a concrete answer as to what happened with them on the Ferris wheel. Apparently Simon said two words to Bram that “destroyed” him. And I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what those words are supposed to be.

He doesn’t seem to be upset by them, judging by how he wants to “keep that one,” so it has to be a good “destroyed.” But their emails seem to become a lot more strained after that point, and Simon has been neglecting messaging his friends, leaving Leah worried he’s spiraling. What could Simon have said to Bram that night that would change their relationship like that, and cause Simon to retreat the way he did? “Marry me?” “It’s you?” “Fuck Martin?” “Hello, lover?” Like I seriously don’t get what exactly he said there, but I get the impression that I was supposed to have inferred something, that there was something I should have picked up on to lead me to a conclusion, an answer to that question.

Did Simon ask Bram to marry him and he say no? That can’t be, because when Simon finally responds to Leah, he says that, while he does believe Bram is the one, he knows he’s not ready for it to happen right now, so I can’t imagine he would have gone through with proposing. Did he say, “It’s you,” in a callback to when their identities were first revealed? Maybe it’s supposed to be a callback to something from Simon vs that I just don’t remember, because it’s been a while since I’ve reread it.

Going back and rereading that section, it really seems like it’s a one-sided Simon thing at first, that he’s just figuring stuff out. So, if he said “it’s you” what else is there to figure out? Like, they’re still together, they’re spending their breaks together, Simon spends a whole two weeks and then some in New York with Bram, and then they hit that “This isn’t working” point. And so I’m wondering, did something happen when Simon was in New York? It’s never really said, though Abby and Leah do point out Washington Square Park and...I’m not entirely sure why?

Okay, and finally, the ending: I’m still really confused by it. Not Simon transferring to New York, that makes sense, but Bram’s reply to it doesn’t. I mean, it’s in-character and makes sense as his reaction, but I don’t understand it’s significance. What is he calling Simon about? Just, that he’s happy they’re going to be going to school together? To talk about his transfer? I don’t know, something about it just felt incomplete to me.

All of this being said, I did still enjoy this book. It was super cute and exactly the follow-up to this series that I didn’t know I needed haha. Don’t take any of my criticisms of the book as hate or anything. I love Becky, I love her writing style, and I love her characters. This book could have been fifty pages of Simon e-mailing Bram his interpretation of the themes to the Bee Movie and I’d have loved the living hell out of it. It just didn’t click all the right boxes for me, in ways I can’t entirely place my fingers on.

#mine #love simon #simon vs #simon vs the homo sapiens agenda #svthsa #simon spier #love creekwood #becky albertalli #book review #fair warning there's some negative stuff in here but i did like the book overall

[purge-that-urge-rhackathon]

Heya purge! I saw in one of your tags that you’d been consuming fic for around 20 years! That’s like my whole life. Mind telling us how things have changed? I’m sure places like ao3 have changed things a lot. I’m just really curious in fandom and fanfic culture! :3 x

Ao3 is a fucking godsend let me tell you. I won’t make a lot of the same points and stuff that fannish history folks have already documented (how it literally changed, and all the fic we’ve lost that isn’t backed up on floppy disk somewhere… I’d say we’ve lost an equivalent to the digital burning of alexandria honestly) but i can tell you my experience :3

I’ll stick it under a cut cuz i kind of rambled… but i had fun doing so ahahha xD sorry you unleashed the tiger from the cage xD

We all make jokes about ‘being there’ when stuff in fandom history happened, but i’ve been around since all the major purges (LOL my name is so fitting in retrospect ahahha). ff.net’s various purges (and the whole anne rice suing fanfic writers and shit… i never DID agree to their new terms of service haha), geocities sites going down, obviously the more recent shit too, but like I’ve been around even for the creations of certain, older fanfic sites too (one of the oldest slash forums for lord of the rings fics for example… I was there, Gandalf LOLOL!!… and now that i check the date on that i feel old as balls thanks anon xDDD and wow my one fic is still up there PFFFFT) but like, I come from an era where you took your floppy disk and copy/pasted shit from online (once it even loaded) for later reading, and also so you could find it again, because also before ff.net it was hard to find stuff. I’m pre-google ya’ll xD You dont UNDERSTAND the horrors of trying to find anything pre-google. Ya’ll have it so fucking good D:

There was never an abundance of content like there is today, and so you can bet your shit we were grateful as fuck for what was out there, let alone for someone with a decent command of writing and storytelling. Everyone commented on everything (once that was something even implemented… it was email lists before that, and comments sent in that way… i still have my e-mailed comments from fic readers haha), and it was (and still is, in my honest opinion because people entitled as FUCK now) one of the GREATEST faux paus you could do to be reading a fic (esp. multi-chaptered) and not comment. The indignity of not giving back a little (and it still is a little, which is why i get so damn fired up on this subject) for aaaaaaaall the words and story and everything you just read was a serious sin against fanfic writers. I still think its seriously fucked up not to comment (and again, i’ve mentioned that if you dont got the spoons, thats obviously different) but like, the entitlement that runs rampant today did not even exist back then. Yeah, you still had the assholes whose comment would literally consist only of “where’s the rest?” with ZERO actual thanks or input while expecting/thinking they deserve more (and THEN you could remove chapters or stories, cuz god giveth and damn does she taketh away xD), but it wasn’t nearly as prolific as it is today.

The commenting culture today and the backlash against writers wanting comments on their work in return for providing said free content makes me mad enough to wanna curb stomp some people. I’m a bartender, I don’t put up with shit HAHA xD But the entitlement especially now and people who act like writers are being uppity for wanting a small return on their craft are disgusting. Same type of entitlement as art thieves (we all know the type). We didn’t put up with that shit back then. People acting like little bitches wanting free stuff for literally nothing? We’d pull the whole fic. And the community would handle it and it usually turned into a teaching moment about how damn important it is to comment and just how much freaking control writers DO have over their media. We’d pull it from public view unless amends were made (whether that be a private note from someone entitled finally paying their fucking due with proper humility, or reaching a comment count when you had hundreds of people reading but not commenting). Damn i miss taking away fic xD We played hardball back then xD

That was the fucking worst and people were rightfully denied access to fic if hits didn’t coincide with comments. You could publish a chapter and then decide to remove it from view (either for editing, or hostage taking for comments…. which i miss dearly AHAHAH it forced people to learn to be proper commenters and interact with those whose media they were consuming). It’s a big part of what I miss because just like a proper community, people kept each other in check and made sure everyone played nice. You enjoyed a fic? You sure as hell let that writer know. Now though…. the entitlement drives me up the fucking absolute walls and makes me wanna put stuff behind a paywall sometimes…. everyone is lucky im lazy as shit tho AHAHAH and im usually fine after venting xD

But yeah, fanfic culture in general has shifted in a major way to constantly consume and NEVER give back, either in comments, or creating new content yourself to also add to the community (for example as i’m sure we’re all aware, like ALL the people who bitch about certain ships or ‘why ship this when you can ship THIS?’…. Like, instead of bitching that ‘WAH WAH this author doesnt WRITE the ship I LIKE why can’t they write THAT??’ people came up with the radical idea of CREATING the content they wanted to see :| And if weren’t that good of a writer/artist to do so? Well then you SUPPORTED the writers/artists you enjoyed by leaving comments on their shit OR getting a commission… Goddamn i remember when even ‘commissioning’ people was a wild concept… Ya’ll dont know ahahah xD

I do believe that this is a huge source of where Anti-shipper behavior has stemmed from; entitlement gone berserk. And public schools and shit are still largely full of my parents’ generation who were not computer-literate either in function or courtesy, so even as internet social skills are not being taught correctly (or safety; they scared the SHIT out of us back in the day and now everyone has all their shit and pictures online haha) so there’s also a huge disconnect socially which i think has impacted online fandom spaces and what is considered acceptable or not. People also turn into fucking swine when they think they’re anonymous online (and boy do they change their tune fucking quickly when you out them) and i think the whole anonymity thing is also a factor of this whole entitlement issue in fandom spaces; making demands without giving ANYTHING back. Like I’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t put up with that shit, and it’s not a coincidence I was going to work for the CIA after I just left Japan about 3yrs back (thank fuck I didn’t cuz FUUUUCK this administration) cuz people are dumb as shit and basic tracking skills to call someone out on their bullshit has been my bread and butter since i was like 12 haha. You act dishonest and entitled, and it’s gonna come back to you in some shape or form. You’re going to reap what you sow. That was the motto back then and I still believe in it today.

Hell, it has shocked the FUCK out of me the few times i’ve had people tell me ‘omg me and my friend were talking about your latest update!’ and i’m just like O_O????? because also back in the day, ‘fanfiction’ was kind of a taboo word. You never said you were into fanfic in mixed company. You more or less NEVER discussed it publicly (I’m not even talking dirty stuff, just normal, sfw fanfiction) because it primarily existed only online (for me; i’m post-fan magazines but pre-internet fanfic sites LOLOL). Hell, I got my college english professor into fanfiction. She didn’t even know what it was, let alone that something like that existed, and I had to explain it to her my first year of college kind of with a red face xD She was a writing-professor too so like, let that date the culture a bit. Like, if that was literally her major field of expertise and she didn’t know about it, that should tell you how not-mainstream fanfic was.

I’m kind of out of touch with that myself. Do kids (ya’ll are kids to me okay? xD) mention fanfiction as a reading/entertainment medium in normal conversation? Like, you could mention, without getting weird looks, ‘oh i enjoy reading fanfiction’ or (and i’m like internally gasping at the idea here) being able to say ‘yeah i enjoy writing fanfiction’? Is that a thing? I sure as hell don’t tell my peers that I write fanfic, let alone that i’m approaching 1million words for borderlands stuff alone AHAHAH It’s STILL taboo and seen as a lesser writing medium to folks my age. If you weren’t in a ‘geek’ circle (and i mean, i had friends who played D&D at lunch, and one friend who we mentioned fanfic together with) then culturally, as an art form, it wasn’t acceptable to discuss. Like, i’m STILL in that mindset that fanfic is not something to be discussed off the internet with people and it makes me very very uncomfortable to do so unless i know 100% I can speak discretely with someone. That’s what the offline culture was. I know its way different in some respects, like me and my youngest sister are 10yrs apart and her experiences with fandom are wildly different, but the idea of people actually talking about someone’s fic together with friends absolutely blows my fucking mind.

So, it’s changed in good ways too xD I just fucking HATE people who think they’re entitled to never comment or give back to the community sooooo i tend to get stuck on that issue, ESPECIALLY, again, as a writer approaching 1million words. *salute* doing my duty to the fandom community LOLOL or polluting the fandom community if you’re an anti AHAHAH antis can suck my entire ass and i’ll go on to put another million words of what they HATE into the world and they cant stop me ;3 spite is a fabulous motivator xD

The tools back then were a lot more crude, abilities and functionality was limited (but also better in some ways; moving fic to the ‘backroom’ so to speak), and even finding stuff was hard and relied on the hushed whispers of friends, but damn the community was better. So much better. So much more positive and accountability made people decent. So like, I do LOVE a lot of what we have now, but we have lost SO much. Both in terms of content and sense of community. I wish people would put more positivity into the content they’re consuming and lift up others. It’s why i try my damnedest to leave commenting tags on EVERY SINGLE THING i ever reblog here, because i *know* firsthand how much it means. To scream your art into the silence and only get the equivalent of stares back is maddening.

So yeah. Stuff has changed. Capitalism and censorship are running especially rampant hand-in-hand right now, and lord forbid we come full circle where there are no more places for us. I mean, if we have to go back to email lists, hell I’m already ready and an old veteran to that system anyhow. I’d miss all the content we all have access to…. but then there’s also that 90% commenting rate you get with that kind of system so HEEEEEY let it all fall down! bahahah xD

#poisonjack answers #sorry i got REALLY rambly xD if uh... it's not exactly what you were interested in #i DO have resources to provide like timeline wipeouts of stuff from fandom eras that are lost to the ages now :( #this is my firsthand view of how the past 20 years or so has gone hahah its aaaaall downhill #ya know what? as someone who has put so many fucking fics into the world i think i DO have a right to bitch xD AHAHAH <3 #also some bitchass lady who was 'waiting FOREVER' (forever here being defined as 3minutes) to get her miller lite at my bar has put me in a #MAJOR mood. total bitch. And my manager also told her off AHAHHA but i still can't BELIEVE her entitlement #i'd remember her face but then she was generic for angry old (old in MY definition... she was 60ish haha) white lady and they all look alike #LOLOLOL #if she ever comes back im refusing her service and she can get the hell outta my bar :) #it has been a DAY folks. a tiring ass day

[piracytheorist]

Reactions to this post hating on fanfic, that the original poster/hater will never read. Sadly.

(I'm doing this partly in a live-blog fashion, so keep that in mind.)

1) But I/we aren’t trying to make any money out of it!

Well, see, this is where “illegal” comes in. You can’t break into somebody’s house, even if you don’t mean to steal anything. You can’t camp in someone’s backyard without permission, even if you aren’t raising a marijuana crop back there. And you can’t use someone’s copyrighted characters for your own purposes, no matter what those purposes are.

That's bullshit. This is bullshit. And btw, the law isn't always right, let's not forget. You can't compare those things; you're practically saying every musician who ever played a variation/remix of an existing temporary music piece without asking for the rights to use them but also without demanding money to show their work, are criminals. I guess say goodbye to street musicians. You're saying anyone who paints themselves a copy (or a variation) of Picasso's Guernica and hangs it in a public space (say, a coffee shop) is a criminal. Bullshit.

Oddly enough, the notion of using someone else’s characters never occurred to me. I just tried to do it on my own. Surprise! It worked.

Oddly enough, not everyone's like you. Surprise! The world doesn't turn around you.

[...] are you getting positive feedback because some fans are so hooked on the characters that they’ll read anything involving those names (whether the writing accurately reflects those characters or not)? One real easy way to find out. Write anything you want, using Jamie Fraser, Edward Cullen, Harry Potter _and_ Dr. Who….and then change the characters’ names before you post it. Simple. Find All: “Jamie Fraser”. Replace with: “Joe Kerastopolous”. No problemo, all your own work, and any praise you get is duly earned.

How does this even make sense? The only thing this woman cares about are what names we use in fanfiction? If we don't then everything is solved?

4) But nobody would read stuff I wrote if it wasn’t about characters they already like!

Possibly true, possibly not. Depends on how good a writer you are, and how you go about displaying your work once you’ve written it. But—allowing for the moment that this argument holds water—what you’re saying is that a) you deserve an audience, no matter what, and b) you’d prefer to exploit someone else’s talent and hard work, rather than go to the trouble of making your own way.

Way to encourage newbie writers!

I already mentioned the shit she said about Donald Duck being created by Carl Barks. And she was paid by the Walt Disney Corporation, for crying out loud.

[...] if you want to write stories for the Silver Surfer or Superman, go talk to Marvel or DC, and see if they’re taking new submissions or would let you write a sample script.

You know, not everyone wants to be a full-time writer. Some only want to do it in their free time after a work that has nothing to do with writing. What she's saying is to either dedicate yourself fully to writing or not at all. Again, way to encourage newbie writers.

This is, btw, one reason why fan-fic versions of popular characters so often seem superficial; they lack the depth that the Real Thing has—the writer has merely grabbed at the broadest impression of the character, not built them in complex layers.

Did she just ditch the entirety of fanfiction on the basis that they aren't as DEEP as the Real Thing? Even if in a lot of cases the opposite applies?

I understand the urge to take a story that’s fired your imagination and carry it on or explore other avenues that it might have taken. ¬_Everybody_ does this, when they’ve seen a movie or read a book that captured their imagination [...] Giving people intriguing possibilities is one of the hallmarks of good fiction. But what you do in the privacy of your own imagination is a matter of total freedom; what you do in public is not.

So... we have no freedom of speech then? I mean, I get calling out someone who is talking rude in public, but that's still this asshole's right, as it is my right to call them out.

Beyond the specific arguments against the concept remains the unfortunate fact that a terrible lot of fan-fic is outright cringe-worthy and ought to be suppressed on purely aesthetic grounds.

So are so, so many published books that had no connection to fanfiction whatsoever. Didn't see you going against publishing in general.

Now, I don’t go looking for fan-fiction written about my characters; in fact, I try _not¬_ to see it. But now and then someone sends me a link to a site displaying it [...]

See, if the writer didn't send you the link themselves, you shouldn't blame them for you getting exposed to it! There's a reason the majority of fanfiction writers don't want to send their writings to the original content creators. But you would’ve known that, had you asked the fanfiction community first before you tried to paint us as horrible people.

Now, look. Human beings are hardwired to be interested in sex. We just _are_. Any kind of sex, performed by anyone, anytime, anywhere. Bad sex, good sex, poorly depicted sex, elegantly drawn sex…it doesn’t matter. We have a genetic compulsion to _look_. We’ll look at _anything_ having sex, human or not.

And on your right side, you can see erasure of asexuality.

But…imagine opening your daily mail and finding a letter detailing an explicit sexual encounter between, say, your twenty-one-year-old daughter and your forty-eight-year-old male neighbor---written by the neighbor. At the bottom it says, “Fiction! Just my imagination. All cool, right?” This would perhaps prevent your calling the police, but I repeat…ick. I wouldn’t like people writing sex fantasies for public consumption about me or members of my family—why would I be all right with them doing it to the intimate creations of my imagination and personality?

Is she actually comparing her protective feelings to her fictional characters with the protective feelings to her own family? Is this woman mentally okay?

And personally, I would have called the police.

[...] Emmett someone (who I _think_ is from Twilight; I sort of hope it’s not the willowy young “bottom” from the TV show “Queer as Folk”…)

I'm treading carefully here since I haven't watched the show... but I do get an air of homophobia and discrimination against people who are into BDSM. Wouldn't surprise me, tbh, but I can't be sure.

I also mentioned the fact that she was angry someone wanted to write a fanfiction with her character in order to raise money for a charity. Hm. And then tried to cover it. Of course she would.

People in the book end of the trade watch these developments with a lot of interest—and some apprehension, knowing what happened to the music industry with the advent of Napster and file-sharing. The music industry still exists, of course, but it’s a lot harder for the creative people who _make_ music to make a living from it.

Dude, file-sharing harms the music industry because they take the original content and give it to the world for free. Writing fanfiction isn't copying the entirety of your book and giving it to the world for free. That's still file-sharing, blame the pirates. Fanfiction can fucking promote your work without you having to offer a single penny.

People who read my books tend to be both intelligent (not just because they like _my_ books, but by and large, it takes a fair amount of intellectual resilience to want to take on 1000-page books of any kind), and creative.

LOL honey, get over yourself already. Also, the Twilight series consist, overall, of over 2k pages. Does that mean anything for the people who read it? I read three of those books. Am I intelligent and creative too?

Characters—good characters, “real” characters—derive their reality from the person who created them. They _are_ the person who created them, refracted through the lens of that writer’s experience, imagination, love, fear, and craft. Another writer seeking to duplicate that character might equal—or conceivably surpass--the craft; they can’t touch the essence.

When you mess with my stuff, you’re not messing with my characters—you’re messing with _me_.

Who are the writers of the Outlander TV series again? Oh that's okay because you're making money out of it?

readers occasionally _do_ stumble over bits of fan-fiction, and—while they realize they’re reading fan-fiction at the time— still incorporate these _faux_ stories into their comprehension and memory of the real series.

I wonder if the script for the Outlander TV series is exactly, word-for-word the same as the script in the book series. Has she complained about that? (I’m actually asking this, though, I’ve no clue) Why should she complain about fanfiction? Because she doesn't make money out of the latter?

There is also the issue of a fan at some point writing a piece that inadvertently picks up a plotline that I have myself written, but that hasn’t yet appeared in print—and then turning around and claiming that I’ve stolen it from him/her [...].

*them. Also, that's one problematic behaviour. She's literally judging all fanfiction writers based on one problematic behaviour, what a grown-up.

Anyway, yeah, even if at some point I would have wanted to give her books a try... now I know I never will, purely out of spite. 

#lillpon rambles

[shimmershae]

8, 20, 23, 45, 51 :)

8.  Funny thing, this.  I was actually watching a movie on AMC (I was home recuperating from surgery, pretty much sidelined and on restrictions for over a month, so I was super bored, hahaha) when I saw a promo for the show.  It was of Rick completely falling apart in the aftermath of Judith’s birth when he realized Lori hadn’t made it, only I didn’t realize that at the time so I went on a little internet search.  I found and watched Judith’s birth/Lori’s death scene and my heart went out to her character.  Naturally, I had to find what events had transpired to lead up to such a tragic moment, and I did just that by mainlining all of the show to that point and catching up just in time to join the show live for the Season 5 mid-premiere.  So yeah.  Lori and the pain of Rick and Lori not having enough time was what initially drew me to the show, and some part of me will always mourn for them. But during my binge-watch of the other seasons, I absolutely fell hook, line, and sinker for Carol and Daryl and their bond.  So much so that I started dreaming up stories in my head starring the two of them, hahaha.  Literally every day during my long commute to work I wrote a new chapter in my head.  It was getting to be a huge distraction so I finally decided to purge my imagination (LOL, as if…that only encouraged it to go completely wild) by actually writing the story down and eventually posting it.  I was completely overwhelmed with the initial response to The Wonder That’s Keeping the Stars Apart and it only spurred my crazy brain on to dream up more stories, so there.  I’m afraid you guys are stuck with me for the duration. 

20.  As for ships I surprised myself by liking…totally Michonne and Andrea on the show.  In fanfic, Merle and Andrea are just too much fun to play with, lol. 

23.  Asking me my favorite fic is like asking me to name a favorite child.  It’s impossible because I love so many of them for different reasons.  I’ll try not to list them all, though.  Hmm.  The Wonder That’s Keeping the Stars Apart will always hold a special place in my heart because it’s my firstborn, lol.  I don’t know why, but I love the idea of these two damaged souls learning to love each other in an arranged marriage–in this case, Carol as Daryl’s mail order bride.  Fireworks because it just came so easily, and I loved writing such a simple, sweet moment for the two of them.  Judith and Carl and Enid cuteness was a bonus.  Stupid Cupid because I loved them at the Prison and who doesn’t enjoy a little fake/not fake dating scenario with their faves?  The Breakfast Club because I really enjoyed exploring that aspect of Daryl gaining a family and finding love in the process.  Plus, Caryl meeting as teens is a weakness of mine, too.  The Fox and the Hound because puppies!  LOL.  And the whole next door neighbors falling for each other, Sophia cuteness, and Merle being Merle.  Yours, Mine, and…Ours?  because I have this whole saga written in my head and the sexual tension between Carol and Daryl just keeps ramping up until it explodes, hahaha.  Wherever I’m With Your because it wrote itself and I don’t know.  I’m just proud of it.  And finally, Counting Stars because Daddy Daryl is my absolute favorite, and there’s a whole bunch of him.  Whether it’s writing him with Gracie and Squirrel or Sophia, I just plain love writing this story and cannot wait to get back to it.  Whew.  I best stop here, lol.  Sorry.  I just have a lot of feelngs, hahaha. 

45.  My all-time favorite fanfic, huh?  What an unfair question, lol, because I have many.  Hmm.  I can’t keep it to one.  Sorry.  illuminate the heart, rosemary’s babies, with your broken heart in tow, apartment twelve–all by yours truly.  Other Half by NotLaura.  The Alexandria Junior League by darylsdiva1.  How Carol Got Her Groove Back by Trogdor19.  Playing House by ICanStopAnytime.  ever see you again by whowhatsitwhich.  Love Child by the ramblin rose.   Flutter by The Readers Muse.  Pretty by EleanorK.  The Long Road Home by TinkerBell99.  Faulty Benevolence and Made Different by PrintDust.  Echoes by LouBlue.  the midas light turning your limbs to gold by queenpeletier.  Too many to list by Haitus80.  I could go on and on, but I’ve blathered enough already, lol. 

51.  I love and hate feedback and the interaction with all you lovely readers of mine.  Because the validation is awesome and it makes me feel like a million bucks and spurs my creativity into hyper drive.  But little to no feedback?  It breeds all kinds of doubt and I hate that.  Also, if I can’t at least imagine words coming out of the characters’ mouths, it really takes me out of a fic.  I try my best not to be guilty of that myself.  Sometimes I succeed.  Sometimes I don’t.  And seriously.  This is not a knock on non-native speakers at all, but if it looks like you haven’t at least made an attempt at spelling and punctuation, I’m guilty of immediately x'ing out of the story.  On the positive side, I love how creative and talented the Caryl fandom as a whole is and giving.  I feel like I can literally read about these two in any given situation and be entertained. 

 So.  That was pretty much a book, and I apologize.  But thanks so much for the asks.  Nice distractions.  ;)

[babbushka]

My dad and I have been watching coverage of protests together and it's really shitty circumstance that it came up but I asked him if he's seen BKM (he hasn't). Then we started talking about John David Washington and he said wait isn't Adam Driver in that too? And I was like yes yes he is 😌 lol no one in my family knows how deep I am in the fandom 👀👀

Omg Deja I can’t imagine having that level of self control lol, my entire family knows about how deep I am with this whole thing, my mom asks about my fanfic and I get mail addressed as Zannah Zimmerman, it’s a whole thing. We truly have thrown shame out the dang window lol. 

#okk--maaan #cowboy answers