#insert the 'I fucking love fictional cultures I want to learn everything about a fictional culture' meme

[charliedanilovich]

I love that post about Bajoran bluegrass and like... I raise you just childhood on other planets in general! Like what do Vulcans think of when they think of a childhood toy? I can imagine Vulcans giving their kids puzzles but they also keep sehlats, huge fluffy animals, so do they also give their kids big plushies for when the family sehlat passes away? What does a Vulcan children’s playground look like? Did Spock and Tuvok and Michael go on swings when they were kids or are Vulcan playgrounds just full of various logic puzzles? What’s on the curriculum in a Klingon classroom? Their culture values excellency in battle over everything else so how does a Klingon teacher convince a classroom of kids named after Kahless that no, you need to do your maths homework not just fight each other? When Keiko tries to convince Rom to send Nog to school with human and Bajoran kids we learn that the Ferengi education system works via apprenticeships rather than a rigid school structure with mandated materials, which is so interesting! It means that it must be really common for Ferengi to have massive blindspots in their knowledge for sectors they have no personal experience in. And we also learn that Quark used to read baby books to Nog when he was a baby so... Ferengi children’s literature! Ferengi kid’s cartoons! I bet Ferenginar has lots of Chuck E Cheese type establishments for kid’s birthday parties it’s probably an entire industry tons of people have stock and investment in. What about Cardassian kids! It seems that Cardassians have quite authoritarian parenting styles but they also value family over everything and it’s common for multiple generations to live together, so the pressure to move out of your family home doesn’t seem as prevalent in their culture. So Cardassian kids must be used to multiple caregivers and grow up with the expectation that they will care for their elderly family members. What does a Cardassian kids bedroom look like? Is it common for siblings to share? What about Bajoran children? What was the childhood of the last generation of Bajorans who got to have a childhood unburdened by the occupation like? How many culturally specific toymakers had their shops destroyed and how many children’s games haven’t been played in decades due to a lack of space and safety? If you’re a Bajoran parent who lost their youth to the occupation with a baby who’s been born in a free Bajor, what’s the thing you most want them to experience that you never got to have? I never stop thinking about this.  

#insert the 'I fucking love fictional cultures I want to learn everything about a fictional culture' meme #star trek #charliecore

[docholligay]

Doc how do you feel about a Harry Potter-inspired YA book that really...wait! Where are you going?

I think the real bullshit tragedy of Harry Potter is: I truly and actually can really, really love magic shit. Magic, and the limits of it, and learning how to master it, these are all things that I can genuinely love. Part of the reason that I am so angry about my own personal True Blood, Shadow and Bone*, is that I LOVE the magic system as she is set up, I love the IDEA behind it, I love that the underpinnings of how they have set it against the Not!Europe at the edge of Not!WW1 is DRIPPING WITH POSSIBILITY.

But so much of this magical school/magic user/fantasy world shit is caught up in God's Specialist Boy Chosen One narratives, which are not interesting to me, an old woman who sees the world won and lost on the back of groups and teamwork. I am no longer fantasizing about being the Chosen One, I am fantasizing about a group of talented people who can communicate and compromise JUST well enough to keep the world going, because that is a fucking adult fantasy world, let me tell you.

It's that and it's Thing One and Thing Two falling in love and that's the central piece and there is no amount of QUILTBAG or racial or cultural identities you could put on Thing One and Thing Two that would make that compelling for me. Have you noticed in my writing there's very few meet-cute, how they got together stuff? It's not just that interesting to me. I like love! Romantic and platonic both! But what matters to me are what those relationships mean to us, and what they make us do, and how they move us in tension with our other ideals. I would much rather open with Fareeha Amari, married, somehow, though she has a clear stick up her sculpted ass, and over time, we see what it is Angela sees in her, what she saw in her when they DID meet, what there IS under all of it, but all of that is SO much more fun when I already know that she has brought the same level of intensity and devotion that she does for everything from military maneuvers to a trip to the grocery store.

But I LOVE magic, especially in less-magic contexts. So for example, I really, for a time, loved the Dresden Files before it really sharply fell off even as pulp. I would ADORE a grown up magical girl story that was really an urban fantasy type. I want Minako to be 23 and trying to make rent. Part of why Shadow and Bone (GOD I AM SO FUCKING MAD ABOUT THIS I BLAME YOU JEWLET) got to me is I loved that the magic users aren't an accepted part of life, that what they do is odd and awed. I have inserted my blorbos into it, of course I have. But yes, i love when the magic is grounded in the BOREDOM of a 'real' world instead of Lorde Filip DuKazmeri of the Throne of Blood and Tears riding in from Happenstance-upon-Milquetoast on his dragon with a Slintergast** at his hip.

ANYWAY, all this to say that when Harry fucking goddamn potter came around, so much magic that is based in 'reality' became patterned after that, and I'm just, so tired of reading it, and I'm so tired of the geegaws and easy morality because fantasy wants rto either be straight Up YA or teehee adult fiction that's mostly a cover for being YA gaymance, and so fantasy and I essentially broke up in like....2009? I want to say? Maybe 2010? Sometime around there, and I rarely drive past its house to see what's going on anymore, the well is fully poisoned now.

*the really bad Netflix television show that is also not good and I recommend to no one. I will not read the books, i have suffered enough.

**sword but like, real cool looking.

#goddamnit this is the only ask i got done #y'all I am not gonna lie this new schedule is brutal for me #I am struggling.

[rollercoasterwords]

I love the new chapter! Your writing is amazing:)

Do you have any writing tips you use that you’d be willing to pass on?

hi this response is v delayed so the ch is no longer new but thank you!! 💕

i wish i had more/better writing tips but i feel like a lot of my writing process is largely intuitive and isn't coming so much from me like...thinking through "oh x works really well and y doesn't work well" yknow? that being said, there are 2 things i can think of that have sort of been helpful realizations for me over the past year or two (these will probably sound very generic and are most likely things that thousands of other people have already said, but for me personally they were both just driven home recently so bear with me lol)

1 - no writing is bad writing!!

i know this is so cliché but like...i personally am a big perfectionist and sometimes i'll give up on a project if i feel like i can't get it just right, so i think it took me a while to accept the fact that literally everything i've written (including the embarrassing fanfiction from high school and the god-awful self-insert oc stories from middle school) has contributed to getting to the point i'm at now, where i'm pretty confident in my ability as a writer :) writing is a skill just like playing an instrument or learning a language; you have to practice to get better, and any time spent writing is practice and is helping like...build creative muscle or whatever. i have years and years of bad writing squirrelled away on flash drives and old word docs and dusty corners of the internet, and most of it makes me cringe to look back on, but none of the time spent writing shitty stories was time wasted because i had fun doing it and it ultimately helped me improve! so rather than focusing on perfection in writing or worrying about making sure it's good, i think it's honestly more important to just focus on enjoying the process :) which leads me to my second point...

2 - write stories that you want to read!!

again, this might seem obvious and self explanatory, but i feel like especially with social media and influencer culture and the late capitalist hellscape we're all descending into there's this mentality that you need an audience to validate the things you're creating, like art and literature should only exist to be consumed. and i think this mentality is damaging for a lot of reasons, but the one i'll focus on right now is that i think it's incredibly easy to get burnt out when you're creating for other people.

like, ok. i feel like i've had the greatest personal growth with my own writing over the past year and a half, and it started because i was just like "fuck it i want to read the captive prince series from laurent's perspective," and so i wrote it. and part of me was like - oh, this isn't real writing because i'm just rewriting a book series, i'm not coming up with a plot or making up my own characters, etc etc. but the thing is i had tried to write original novels in the past and had always just hit a plateau partway through, so even though part of me was like oh there's no purpose to this, it's not like it's something i'll ever be able to publish--it was just fun! like i was just genuinely having a good time! and it ended up being really good writing practice, because i got to just focus on this in-depth character study + also prove to myself that i could sit down and churn out a book-length work of fiction, even if i was following someone else's plot.

and so then i sort of got out of my own head about like...only ever writing with the ultimate goal of publication in mind, and started focusing more on just writing for fun. and that led to atyd - sirius's pov, which sort of exploded, and then i found myself starting to get bogged down again in focusing on like -- oh, how many people have read this chapter, how many people have commented, what good things are people saying, what bad things are people saying, etc etc. and i started to get in my own head again about the fact that i was rewriting a story, the kind of impostor syndrome mentality of like "well this isn't real writing because it's not 100% original" etc etc etc. and so any time i started worrying about how my writing was being ~consumed by an audience~ i had to like check myself and take a step back and remind myself that at the end of the day, i was writing for me, because it was a story that i wanted to have and to read and while it was amazing and so so special to have so many people invested in the project, it was never really about providing a story for an audience--that was just a happy side effect and not something that i could sustainably centre my writing process around.

and again, even though i was following someone else's plot and building on an already-existing world and characters, sirius's pov helped me grow so much as a writer and also gave me the confidence to feel like i could actually, feasibly write a novel on my own, which is genuinely something that i never knew whether i'd be capable of because i struggled so much in the past. but now i'm essentially writing my own book with this dorlene fic, and i don't think that's something i'd have been capable of a year ago!

anyway, all that is to say -- don't worry about whether your writing is "serious" or publishable or something that will appeal to a broad audience, and try not to measure the worth of your writing based on other people. write a story that you want to read, because the best way to avoid burnout is to make sure that you're having fun writing! like even when i need a break from actually writing my current fic, i'll still find myself thinking about future scenes i want to write + daydreaming + planning it out in my head because it's a story i want to read, and that's what gets me excited to continue writing it! it's really fun to share your writing with an audience and it's so so so amazing to hear that your work resonates with people (seriously, cannot emphasize enough how much i appreciate those of u who send messages like this + leave comments + kudos + all that 💕), but for me the biggest breakthrough i had with my writing was realizing that my most important reader is myself (as cheesy as that is) 🕺 💞

#this got soooo long #basically just turned into me reflecting on my own writing ~journey~ lol #but at this point if ur still following me i feel like essays are expected #ask #thtf #writing tips

[servicetopkaradanvers]

I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to say this, but I don't know if there is. And you're a smart person and critical thinker who has talked about this before. If this is totally weird, you can just delete it ofc. I've never properly watched Supergirl but I started reading fanfic around the time my mental health got real bad so it was a comfort thing I didn't bring too much thought to. I really identify with Lena and in the past, part of me has understood her actions-

and I know that they're wrong. The anti-alien rhetoric is obviously an allegory for racism or homophobia. She's violated people's basic human rights. And I'm scared that I'm a bad person because sometimes, I kind of get it. Which is insane because i'm a lesbian enby of color, i mean i get targeted by most of the -ist/ism actions. And I'm also too tired to think about things critically all the time. Supercorp was my comfort fic, content thing-

I knew it was problematic (the whole James thing makes me sick to my stomach, scared and sad) but I didn't know that Lena as a character was written that way. The metaphors never really clicked in my head because I never thought about it, but now I feel absolutely horrible about myself because I like and identify with Lena. I'm not really sure how to move on from here- I'm just tired. I wish there could be just one thing, one piece of media that wasn't prejudiced (granted sg is not the place to go if you want decent rep and the like) and all of those things I said earlier. Its just me somehow trying to justify how I felt and empathized with something I shouldn't have. So yeah, sorry that was really long. I hope you have a lovely day- sorry for the spam

FIRST of all, you’re fine, babe! Both in sending me this and in enjoying The Bad Media. That’s my thesis here: You’re fine. With this in mind, let’s unpack this big ol suitcase:

We’re living in a fandom moment where more than ever before, we’re thinking about the ideas we consume in fiction and how they may or may not affect us. This is a net positive! Fiction is not reality, but it undeniably impacts it, so for this and many other reasons, we should always think critically about what resonates with us and why. Does this mean dissecting every facet of something to find all the ways it might fall in line with oppressive power structures? Absolutely not.

You, as an individual, do not owe anyone an explanation for why you enjoy anything. Period. How you relate to a given character or why you like them is nobody's business but your own.

Supergirl, as a piece of media, is singularly awful in its lackluster lipservice to progressivism while simultaneously refusing to deliver any progressive themes. Socially and politically, it is a useless liberal wet dream. Kara is an immigrant from a dead culture working as the muscle for a secret FBI offshoot with zero accountability for all of the other aliens in diaspora she has rounded up and dumped into a cell without trial. Alex is allegedly a lesbian, but the key points of her endgame relationship are constantly deemed not important enough to get screen time, which is made even more absurd when examined from the angle that this series is marketed directly toward LGBT people. An embarrassing percentage of villains on this show are women of color, which is particularly loud when there are only 2 women in the main cast who aren't white. And "main" is extremely generous, given that Kelly is just there to Give Advice Good and everything M'gann says and does is as dry as toast.

My point here is that the whole show is rotted to its roots, and whatever quietly libertarian or even fascism-enabling bullshit they push onto Lena in a given week is par for the crusty, shitty course. Kara deciding that she's ok with the alien detection device because "there are bad aliens" is a lovely (read: awful) microcosm of why this show sucks so fucking hard. "People are entitled to their opinions" is for debates on whether pineapple goes on pizza, not for whether we should casually out, endanger, and disenfranchise our [insert minority metaphor here] because some of them are mean.

But what I would love for this fandom to wrap its head around, and what I hope you understand, anon, is that just because it happens on the show, doesn't mean we have to give a rat's ass about it. What the hell is The Canon, anyway? Especially in the case for Supergirl, which can't even get its own continuity right. Especially for an IP that has been rebooted dozens of times before and will be rebooted again in the future. We can just decide that Lena realized the horrible injustices she enabled through her position of power. We can even decide that they just didn't happen at all! This is all fake. It's not set in stone. Who came up with it, anyway? A network with a list of buzzwords they want included and a couple of D-tier showrunners cranking down caffeine to meet an absurdly tight deadline. It's not special. I can guarantee that you care about it infinitely more than they do, and you haven't even watched the damn show.

On a more personal level, people who are hurt, depressed, or traumatized have always and will always look for themselves in fiction. Myself included! And despite what lofty platitudes there may be on the matter, suffering does not make us kind. It does not make us better. Sometimes it's just suffering. Often it pulls us further from who we are meant to be. Often it just makes us "worse."

Trauma has made Lena emotionally brittle. A lifetime of manipulation and abuse has taught her to compartmentalize herself and lock her feelings behind a maze of doors. When she does let love in, she accepts it so wild and vulnerable that she can't see the red flags behind the rosy lenses. She latches so hard onto people she deems virtuous that she holds them to a standard none could fulfill. Her pain has to go somewhere, so it oozes out of her, into Non Nocere, into the post-reveal rift. She's a powder keg, and Kara spent 4 years shoveling more gunpowder onto the pile while holding the match between her teeth.

And despite these fatal flaws that make perfect sense through the eyes of Lena's trauma, she is so full of love. Like Kara, her suffering did not make her kind. She is kind in spite of her suffering. These are the characters we are drawn to when we're hurting. Lena’s trauma is an inextricable part of her, but it is not all of her, and neither are her mistakes.

There truly is not and never will be a piece of media that is absolutely innocent of the harmful structures thrust upon us by society, because we ourselves also participate in that society whether we are critical of it or not, whether we strive to change it or not. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Bettering ourselves is not a journey toward an ultimate destination of perfection. It is a garden we nurture in an endless labor of love because the joy that comes from seeing it flourish and change vastly outweighs the work we put into it and the weeds popping up around its unkempt edges. This is a lesson Lena herself could probably stand to internalize. Probably with lots and lots of therapy. Lots. And lots.

So, to circle back to the start of this? You're fine. You recognized the logic in a traumatized character's mistakes because our own gravest errors more often than not stem from the ways we have been harmed in the past. It's what makes Lena (or, at the very least, the many adaptations of Lena that exist in this fandom) a good character. She is, to her core, characterized proof that a crumbling foundation and poisonous soil do not define us. Which is why watching her heal and grow and learn a healthier kind of love is so, so wonderful.

In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that being critical of media does not mean that we stop enjoying the parts of it we like. There is a lot of gold to be pulled from the steaming pile of shit that is CW Supergirl, and that's why we're all here in the first place. So I really hope you can continue to enjoy it in whatever way makes you smile <3

#Anonymous #lena

[ckret2]

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

#gvk #godzilla vs kong #gvk spoilers #godzilla vs kong spoilers #godzilla #meta

[lillupon]

So, I've got a very long rant/opinion here and Idk really know how to say this without coming off kinda bad but I'm gonna say it anyways. I agree with the fact that the seventeen tag has been kinda dry lately on most fanfic places, but it's really only in the smut area. It's the sane way with other groups too I feel like. All of the nice little innocent tags are boomin to this day and thats completely fine. I think the smut tag is dry tho bc lately I feel like a few social issues (like sexualizing people and disrespecting them and their identity) have crossed over into kpop and have been ?blown out of proportion? Lately there's been a rampage of people who like to say that writing smut about someone is disgusting and is dehumanizing because people want to assume that it would make the idols uncomfortable which could equate to some morality issues on how you are reducing someone only to their body without their consent and a bunch of stuff like that. It kind of pisses me off bc this is fiction. About grown adults. Clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life. I think a shit ton is wrong with the world we currently live in, and deciding to come after something that isn't even real bothers me. Like what does that actually accomplish. But yeah, I think thats a reason why smut has been dying down. I mean, on youtube almost every video about unpopular opinions, or things they dont like about kpop will include something about shipping idols in fanfics. And then everyone in the comment section will talk about how its all fine and dandy in moderation, but once people start writing smut it's crossing the idols personal boundaries. It's something I've been seeing a lot more often and I think people who are interested in writing smut are being turned away from it bc we've gotten to a point where people are being called disgusting for having fantasies.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending in this Ask. 

I want to preface this by saying: when I write or talk about Mingyu and Wonwoo fucking on my blog, it is a fantasy. I am not speculating about what the real Mingyu and Wonwoo might be like in bed. I am imagining the versions of Mingyu and Wonwoo that I have created in my head, that exist only in my stories. None of it is real. I understand that this can be a blurry boundary for some people. But for me, the separation between fantasy and reality is well-defined. Now, on to your Ask!

You’ve hit the nail on the head with this one. You’ve also touched on many of the issues I have been struggling with myself as of late. It’s difficult to argue about morals since everyone has a different set of values, as well as different comfort levels. Some people think real person fiction (RPF) is a gross invasion of privacy. Others are fine with it. And others don’t care one way or another. There is no single answer; I can only offer my answer. Which means, of course, people are welcome to disagree with it, or parts of it. 

In this essay (LOL But forreal: this is an essay), I will be sharing my experience in the k-pop fanfic community from 2014 to present, the etiquette I personally abide by as a reader and writer of RPF, as well as my stance on RPF in general.

I started reading and posting fanfics back in 2014/2015 on a website called AsianFanfics (AFF). Obviously, no one on that site had a problem with RPF, since AFF is a platform made specifically for sharing stories about Asian celebrities. For many years, I read and enjoyed RPF with zero guilt. I scribbled away by myself in my own corner of fandom and curated my own content. I didn’t interact much with other fans, readers, or writers. I didn’t have a Twitter, and I only used tumblr to reblog memes. As a result, I’ve been able to avoid a lot of anti-shipping discourse, as well as purity and cancel culture. I had no idea there were so many negative opinions about RPF. It wasn’t until I became active on the subreddit r/Fanfiction last year that I learned about all the discourse surrounding RPF. 

This newfound ‘awareness’ does make me feel guilty at times—but only because after mulling this over, I still don’t think this is something to feel guilty about.

Here’s what I remember, first and foremost, when I create and consume RPF: fanfics and my favourite ships are fictional, and fiction is fantasy. This is basic etiquette when it comes to RPF, and most people in the k-pop fandom understand this. Delusional fans exist, of course, but they are not representative of the entire k-pop community. 

Another point of etiquette is to keep fanfics within fandom spaces. I would never push my fics into celebrities’ faces, or go around claiming that my fanfics are accurate representations of a k-idol’s life or personality, in any way, shape, or form. I would also discourage directing ship-related questions to official accounts, or bringing them up during fansigns or other face-to-face interactions; I believe that in these instances, shipping does have the potential to strain real-life relationships.

So with basic etiquette out of the way, let me share my approach to RPF in general.

As much as we like to think we know our favourite celebrities, we really don’t. All we see is their public persona. And this public persona is intentionally controlled, managed, and curated by a team of people: directors, tabloids, editors, makeup artists, publicists, etc. How “real” are these celebrities? We are so distanced from them that they may as well be fictional.

I draw from the public persona that idols project, and I work them into my own writing. But at the end of the day, these personalities are my own interpretation. My interpretation is probably nothing like an idol’s actual personality. I just use the “public persona/character” that idols portray as inspiration for my own stories, which are set in wildly different universes.

More than anything, I think of k-pop idols as “actors” in my fic. You know how when you write an original novel, you scroll through Google images, looking for the perfect person to portray your original character? RPF is literally that, except you might build upon pre-existing dynamics and personalities.

When it comes to explicit fanfiction, two main concerns are prevalent: one of consent, and one of sexualisation.

If we argue against explicit RPF due to lack of consent, we should be willing to apply the same lens to all explicit works. How do we know that the creator of a movie, book, series, etc., is okay with us using their characters in our stories, explicit or not? We don’t. Perhaps some creators encourage fanfiction, but don’t want their lovingly crafted characters engaging in sexual acts or experiencing trauma. We just don’t know. I feel this line is even more blurred when we talk about characters from movies or TV series.

Let’s take Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, as portrayed by Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, from the Captain America movies as an example. I am willing to bet that when people consume and create explicit fanfiction about Steve and Bucky, they are imagining Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan in their heads. I doubt many people are imagining the 2D cartoon versions of Steve and Bucky, even though they’re technically the exact same characters. Why? Well, it could be because movies are more readily and easily consumed than comics, and so people are unfamiliar with comic book Steve and Bucky. But it might also be because fans find Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan attractive. Is this really any different from RPF, where fic authors make up everything about a celebrity’s life?  

When readers and writers of fanfic talk about how hot Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes is, those comments are about Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan’s bodies. When reading explicit stories, fans are going to picture Chris and Sebastian’s bodies in their head, doing sexual things. Can we say, “Well, it’s not really you, Chris/Sebastian”, when in a way, it is?

The reality is, people are going to thirst over celebrities, regardless of whether or not explicit fanfiction exists. They’re going to post thirst tweets on Twitter. They’re going to talk to friends and strangers online about how hot [insert celebrity name here] is. They’re going to fantasize about dating and having sex with their favourite celebrity. Or, as it is in my case, they’re going to make up stories in their heads about their favourite idols dating and banging each other. People are going to do all of this without ‘getting consent’ from the celebrity. Cracking down upon and shaming writers of RPF isn’t going to change any of that.

To be honest, I’m not sure why people think it is disgusting to imagine sexual scenarios about real people. It is okay and normal to have these kinds of fantasies. I suppose the alternative is to fantasise about having sex with cartoon characters instead? It’s a very binary way of thinking to say that if you imagine/write real people in explicit scenarios, you are immediately sexualising, dehumanising, or objectifying them. There is more to dehumanisation than writing smut about our favourite celebrities. For one thing, you can love someone and appreciate all parts of them, and still want to fuck their brains out. And generally, fanfics come from a place of love—love that is not only sexual in nature.

Is it the sharing aspect inherent to fanfiction? The possibility that a celebrity might stumble upon explicit works about them? The chances are very low, I think, of the k-pop idols I enjoy writing about coming across my English fics. But I also believe in curating your own content, and that applies to celebrities too. Perhaps a celebrity should not go searching for fanfics about themselves. And of course, people should not show celebrities their fanfics, unless invited.

Another argument I hear against (explicit) RPF is, “How would you feel if someone wrote fanfiction about you?” First off, I don’t like this argument because there’s a difference between someone who decides to be a public figure versus someone who decides to remain a regular private citizen. Celebrities should and do know what they’re getting into when they choose their occupation. (This is not to say, “They are celebrities; sexualise them all you want because that’s what they signed up for.” Here, I am only acknowledging that people might have sexual fantasies about celebrities they are attracted to. Presumably, celebrities are cognizant of this.)  

If someone (whose existence I am not even aware of, mind you) decides they want to write explicit fanfiction of me in some tiny corner of the Internet, I wouldn’t care so long as: (1) they don’t shove it into my face, and (2) they don’t harass me and ask invasive questions about my personal life and relationships. It’s not hurting me or negatively affecting my life, so it wouldn’t even register as a blip on my radar. When fanfiction remains within its appropriate spaces, it is largely harmless. 

Now, if a k-pop idol were to ask their fans to stop writing fanfiction about them, would I? Yes, I would. However, I can’t imagine that happening. Judging by the number of ‘sexy’ concepts, fanservice moments, and variety shows such as ‘We Got Married’, I am certain that k-pop idols realise they are the stars of many fantasies—some of which are explicit in nature. Considering the prevalence of shipping in the k-pop industry, I would argue that shipping is subtly encouraged.

It’s sad that so many talented writers are shamed out of fandom, or feel that k-pop cannot be the medium through which they tell their stories, or explore their sexuality, or cope with trauma, or simply have fun. Professional works and Hollywood love their RPF—readers and writers of fanfics should be able to, as well. 

As you said Anon, “clamping down on horny people who simp over hot asian men isn't going to solve the issues we face in real life” (this is a lovely sentence, by the way). The kind of person who dehumanises another and reduces them to a sexual object will do so some other way, if not via fanfiction. I don’t think the issue of fetishisation can be fixed simply by telling people not to write explicit RPF. In my experience, people who read and write RPF are more respectful and thoughtful about these things than the general public. We’ve all seen the general public say highly sexual things about celebrities in the media and to their faces, or tag celebrities in their thirst tweets. Are these things less invasive than fanfiction? Personally, I don’t think so. And in my opinion, there are more pressing and damaging issues in stan culture than fanfic.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating and consuming RPF, both explicit and non-explicit so long as we:

Remember we are writing fiction

Keep RPF within its appropriate space, and

Do not harass celebrities about their personal lives and relationships

RPF is not for everyone. There may be people who enjoy RPF, but draw the line at explicit stories. This is fine. Everyone has their own personal preferences. What is not fine, however, is attacking people for creating things you don’t like. I’m not sure what kind of moral crusade people are on and what they hope to achieve by shaming writers of RPF, explicit or otherwise. Ultimately, fic authors are writing a fantasy. It’s not real; no one is being hurt. I think it’s important for people to curate their own content, and AO3 makes it very easy to filter out explicit works and unwanted tags. 

Maybe this is me trying to justify my own participation in explicit RPF—I don’t know. What I do know is that I love k-pop, and fandom is an important part of my media and entertainment experience. I adore the k-pop idols I write about, and I just want to imagine them being happy and getting lots of love and orgasms. Let a bitch be horny, goddamn… 

Some bonus fun facts!

At the time I am writing this, on AO3:

26.2% of Stray Kids fanfics are rated M or E

26.3% of Seventeen fanfics are rated M or E

29.0% of Merlin fanfics are rated M or E

34.9% of Captain America (Movies) fanfics are rated M or E

40.1% of BTS fanfics are rated M or E ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Coincidentally, I saw this post on Reddit this morning: Can we have a RPF positivity post?

#asks #my writing #fic & fandom #I keep coming back to fiddle and add things to this answer #but I think I've said all I wanted to now...

[tenaflyviper]

Fandoms these days represent some of the absolute worst of human behavior. They are honestly a red flag that people need to turn off their phones and computers, go the hell outside, and interact with real people until they can learn basic humanity.

And for the record, there is no "right" side, either. All y'all motherfuckers are toxic. The overzealous shippers (do NOT harass real people over fictional characters! Do not get invasive about others' relationships, do not touch people without permission, do not threaten to kill anyone, do not threaten their loved ones, do not try to break up marriages--just DON'T), the "anti-shippers" (I'll get to you in a minute), the "criticals" (your viewpoints are entirely subjective, and not universal to all people. Some of you are even inadvertantly racist as hell by making claims like "This character is racist, because [insert something an old white woman would say here]")--none of you are free from sin, because you all treat other human beings like shit, and value fictional characters more than living, breathing people.

And keep your self-righteous "I'm making fandoms SAFE!!" savior-complex bullshit to yourself, 'cuz more than once, you same motherfuckers have been caught being the ones actually grooming minors after proclaiming how much they can allegedly "trust" you. If you go out of your way proclaiming your "purity" and morality, you better believe you're suspicious as fuck to everyone else, cuz normal, decent human beings don't feel the need to do that. Plus, 9 times out of 10, the people you harass the most are minors!! I absolutely get not wanting to see gross shit, but it is NOT your job to try to look out for anyone but yourselves, and clearly, you can't even be trusted to do THAT right! I literally never see "incest" or "pedophilia" on my dash--or anywhere else I go, for that matter--and I don't even have to try. So why is it so bloody difficult for the rest of you?? Are you actually trying to avoid it, or are you deliberately seeking it out to fan the flames of self-righteous fury, and make you feel morally "superior"? Or worse--are you just trying to cover your own ass??

You jackasses spend more time in fictional worlds than out making ACTUAL FRIENDS. You're literally like unsocialized animals. You ever see a small dog that bites and barks at pretty much everyone and everything that isn't "Mommy" or "Daddy"? THAT'S YOU. You don't spend enough time around other people that differ from you, so you lash out at others even slightly different before you even know them, instead of listening and learning. Especially if you're neurodivergent (like myself) this shit ain't healthy. Please remember what other kind of shit ignorance and isolation foster. I've personally witnessed white teenagers attacking PoC content creators over characters they made to represent themselves and their culture.

It's 2020 now. Please get real lives, or learn how to fucking GET ALONG.

#Y'all are more segregated and isolated than bathrooms in the South before the Civil Rights movement

[mst3kproject]

601: Girls Town

 This movie is vile but the episode has some amazing moments. The joke about assassinating Eisenhower nearly choked me the first time I heard it, and I love the skit about the honour system.  It reminds me of the one about Bobo’s Sandwich, in that I know where it’s going but it’s the trip that makes it work.  There’s something about Mike’s complete obliviousness while the wrappers fly that just kills me.

A guy named Chip tries to rape his date, and she allows him to fall off a cliff to his death (insert gif of woman with teacup saying “good for her”).  His friends know he was supposed to be out with a girl named Silver – she denies being there, but they turn her over to the police, who send her to a Catholic reform school called Girls Town.  Meanwhile, Chip’s ham-faced buddy Fred realizes it was actually Silver’s sister, Mary Lee, whom Chip attacked.  Fred decides to blackmail her, and Silver must somehow find the time to let God into her heart and escape Girls Town to help her.  Meanwhile meanwhile, a girl named Serafina tries to commit suicide because a squashed-looking singer named Jimmy will never love her.

Let’s count the attempted sexual assaults in this movie. We start off with Chip trying to rape Mary Lee.  Then a guy tries to force himself on a girl during the supposedly comedic fight scene. Serafina literally throws herself at Jimmy, twice.  The detective repeatedly tries to get cuddly with Silver when he knows she’s underage. Fred’s plan is to sell Mary Lee into sexual slavery in Tijuana, and at the climax, another one of Chip’s ham-faced friends is trying to rape her all over again.  Oh, and Silver is supposed to be seventeen and Mary Lee fifteen, so even if any of these encounters were consensual the men involved would still be rapists.

This is, obviously, repulsive, but it’s also the entire point of the film.  We’re here to see a bunch of titillating bad behaviour, just barely held together by an outline of a story.  There are two things in Girls Town that might be called a plot – one is the intrigue among the teenagers of who killed Chip and why, the other is Silver coming to realize that she can’t go through life without help, whether from God or other people.  Both these stories, however, happen almost entirely in the background in order to make more room for the exploitation content.

And what a lot of exploitation content there is!  We’ve got leering shots of Mamie Van Doren in all kinds of form-fitting clothing.  We’ve got girl fights with slapping and pulling hair.  We’ve got the aforementioned assaults, which are dropped quite casually into the narrative and never more than barely dealt with. There’s parties and dangerous drag racing and teen idols and the weird ‘scandal’ thing about Serafina’s obsession with Jimmy, which Jimmy seems determined to foster when he really should be getting a restraining order.  Yes, there’s something here for everybody, except of course for people who like good movies!  I find myself wondering if the writers weren’t given a list of things the studio wanted to include, and had to find a way to fit them all into one ninety-minute movie.

The result, as one might imagine, is utterly foul, and while it’s more unified than it might have been, I don’t even want to give it credit for that because it is so utterly nasty and sexist.  When it was first released I suspect the movie felt like a trick, like it lured in an audience with the promise of a good time, only to wag its fingers and tell them to say their prayers.  From the standpoint of sixty years later, it just reeks of hypocrisy. I’m pretty sure the church frowns on taking pleasure in (or profit off) debauched behaviour, even fictional debauched behaviour. Are we really supposed to enjoy all that and then take away the lesson that we should be loving, pious people? Are we honestly meant to believe that the film-makers were sincere about that message?

I commented on the use of the archetypes of maiden, mother, and whore in my review of Untamed Youth and here it is again in Girls Town, even less subtly.  The nuns are obviously mothers, even the ones whose official title is ‘sister’, because that is the role they fill towards the students.  The students themselves come into Girls Town as whores and leave having been remade as maidens, which is Silver’s arc mainly – as illustrated with a rubber mallet to the face when she meets her former self on the way out – but we see the same thing in others, too.  Serafina begins the movie ready to be a whore for Jimmy, and ends it as a maiden, having become a novice nun.  Mary Lee spends the whole movie under threat of becoming a whore, but in the end manages to preserve her maiden-ness with Silver’s help.

The sins and stories of the male characters are equally simplistic. Jimmy seems to have spent his whole life atoning for the theft of a laughable forty dollars (this might have been less laughable in the 50s, but it still wasn’t exactly a fortune). He is in the movie as a literal deus ex machina.  When Silver prays, it’s Jimmy’s car that God sends to her, thereby saving Mary Lee. Jimmy is also the instrument of Serafina’s redemption, inspiring her to marry the Lord instead of lusting after singers.  I don’t think it’s an accident that his name is James.  St. James the Greater is the patron of pilgrims, or those who go on a journey seeking salvation.

(Not that this has anything to do with anything, but when I looked that up I learned that the epithets ‘St. James the Greater’ and ‘St. James the Lesser’ are supposed to specify that one was ‘Tall Jim’ and the other was ‘Short Jim.’)

The only other major male presence in the film is Fred. Characters like Chip’s grieving father and the detective are introduced as if they will be important, but after a scene or two they vanish and never recur.  Where Jimmy is almost literally the movie’s saint, Fred is its devil.  Almost everything he does is reprehensible, starting with harassment and moving up through vehicular homicide to human trafficking!  If they could have gotten away with making him a cannibal they probably would have done that, too.

Girls Town therefore presents a world in which humans can be tidily divided into good and evil.  There are nice god-fearing boys who do charity work, and there are nasty murdering rapist.  There are sweet virginal girls and nice motherly nuns, and then there are whores. And it’s obvious within a few moments of meeting either type exactly which side they’re on

This is, frankly, a terrible way to present people in a movie, not just because it’s shitty character writing but because in real life you can’t just tell like that.  When rapists and serial killers are captured there’s always somebody saying he looked so normal, and I swear it’s because movies keep telling us that such people don’t look normal.  This makes us feel better because we like to think we could recognize a ‘bad person’ if we met one, and even more we like to think that we don’t look the way ‘bad people’ do.  The truth is that this just isn’t possible, and perpetuating such stereotypes encourages people to see danger where none exists and ignore it where it does.

One thing the movie does get kind of right is the culture the inmates have developed for themselves at Girls Town.  There have been studies about how hierarchies evolve in closed groups such as prisons and high schools (yes, of course people have explicitly made that comparison), and an outline of that exists in the film.  The nuns are technically ‘in charge’ but the students have a form of self-government as well, complete with a penal system, which their actual superiors have come to respect.  Rules that benefit the group are enforced from within it.  Alliances survive despite things that should break them, because they’re all anybody has.

As a movie, Girls Town looks okay.  You can always tell where you are and what’s going on.  The girls and even the nuns are easy to tell apart, performances are never outstanding but usually acceptable, and you can follow the plot even when it throws in weird shit like Serafina’s obsession and the ridiculous drag race.  The content is just so disgusting that none of these things actually matter, and the worst aspect of that content is the way it throws in sexual assault like seasoning – just toss in a rape here and there to spice things up!

The writers allow Mary Lee to plead self-defense since Chip attacked her first, but the rest of them are never dealt with.  We don’t know what happened to the girl in the fight scene, she and her attacker never even have names.  The detective faces no consequences for cozying up to both Silver and Mary Lee, despite the fact that he’s gotta be twenty years older than either.  Serafina is somebody to be pitied and the thought of getting her to talk to a psychologist never occurs to anybody.  At the end, it seems like even the nuns are willing to forget about all the nasty shit Fred did as long as he testifies that Mary Lee isn’t a murderer!

When all was said and done the movie’s makers probably patted themselves on the back and told each other than they meant well, what with the Good Christian Message and all, and slept very well that night.  They were douchetrumpets.  Fuck them and fuck their movie.

#mst3k #reviews #girls town #tw: rape #fuck this movie #50s

[flying-elliska]

salut ellie! someone once asked you about your writing and you recommended falling in love with language and finding ways of writing you love. i was wondering, what books and/or writing styles are you in love with? it's just so interesting to know what somehow had an impact on the way you're writing bc i honestly adore your style

wow do you remember that ? that is such a flattering question oh my god. well, i’m still working on it. some of my favorites are (i’m very eclectic lmao) : 

- His Dark Materials (it’s a fantasy book series ‘for kids’ but it’s actually insanely deep and philosophic) is pretty much the first book series that made me fall in love with stories, and made me want to write. I think I found it when I was 10, and it completely shaped me. It’s so ambitious and clever, it never talks down to the reader, brings up those amazing worlds and philosophical concepts and is still accessible to kids. Most of all it is so committed to atmosphere, to making it vivid, to really make you go through what the characters are. I’m thinking of it and I can remember exactly certain passages in an almost sensory way : the witch Serafina Pekkala describing what it feels like to feel the Aurora Borealis on her bare skin as she is flying through the arctic. The polar bear Iorek giving Lyra frozen moss to help bandage his wounds after a battle. The grilled poppy heads that the Jordan College scholars at Oxford eat during a meeting. The little Gallivespians on their dragonflies and the way the sun reflects off their poisonous spurs. That’s how you make a story stick ; that’s how you can put in deep stuff without ever making it boring. I am so excited they’re making a tv series because that shit deserves some recognition. And I mean the whole plot about the importance of stories, free will, the horror of religious fundamentalism....always relevant. Philip Pullman’s stuff is great in general, I love his Sally Lockhart series, which is more adult and adventure focused, and is a great deal of fun. And of course, the sequel to HDM he’s been putting out recently. 

- I spent a lot of my teen years reading either crime novels or historical novels. (When I think of some of the stuff I read when I was 13 I’m like oh my god what were my parents doing lmao some of that was really horrible.) And I think it gave me a good feeling for suspense and setting, and how important tension is. One of my all time faves is Andrea Japp. She is a French writer who does mostly crime, involving complex/monstrous woman characters and a very sensory, poetic approach to language, often involving food, plants and poisons. My favorite by her is the “Season of the Beast”/Agnès de Souarcy chronicles, which is a crime series set in medieval times, with a cool independent lady at its core, crimes in a monastery, and this very gloomy end of times vibe that I love. I also read a lot of Scandi Noir stuff, I love the kind of ...laconic approach to life. And again : vibe. Vibe is so important. And Sherlock Holmes stories. I love the Mary Russell series that take place in that universe and are basically a big Mary Sue self insert guilty pleasure but are just. So much fun. 

- I like poetry a lot - not stuff that is too wordy, but something short, sharp and vivid. i think reading poetry is essential to feeding your inner ‘metaphor culture’. I love Mary Oliver. Rimbaud, too, that I read at 17 and rocked my world. One of my underrated faves is  Hồ Xuân Hương, a Vietnamese poet from the 18th century who was adept at using nature metaphors to hide both erotic stuff, irreverent jokes, and political criticism, and correspond with all the great scholars of her time under a pseudonym. Badass.  Recently I bought ‘Soft Science’ by Franny Choi, which is about cyborgs, having a female body, emotions and politics and it’s absolutely brilliant. 

- I love reading fairy tales, too. Currently reading (i always read a lot of books at once lol) Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales, basically fairy tales for grown ups, collected from folklore all over the world, with an amazing kind of gruesome humor and wisdom. Norse mythology is also so damn funny. That one bit with Thor dressing up as a bride or Loki’s shenanigans...amazing. And I like fantasy, I find it very soothing to read for some reason, my fave has to be Robin Hobb and her Realm of the Elderlings series. And Terry Pratchett, especially the series with Death or the Witches. Just brilliant. Neil Gaiman too. 

- I tend to be very impatient when it comes to literary fiction, I find a lot of it is self-indulgent, dreary. I’m a genre reader through and through, I need to be amazed. I loved ‘the Elegance of the Hedgehog’ by Muriel Barbery though. Some stuff by Amélie Nothomb, Virginie Despentes occasionally (they’re French writers with a very dark, wry approach to life, tho the first is more polished acid and the second very punk rock). And ‘Special Topics in Calamity Physics’ by Marisha Pessl is pretentious as hell but a lot of fun, if you like dark academia. Salman Rushdie has a way with language that is amazing. 

- I read a lot of non-fiction. At the moment : the Cabaret of Plants (about the symbolic/socio historical meaning of plants and how they shaped history) by Richard Mabey and ‘Feminist Fight Club’ by Jessica Bennett. One I absolutely love is ‘the Botany of Desire’ by Michael Pollan in which he traces the history of four plant species (apple, potato, cannabis, tulip) and how they impacted us as much as we impacted them. I was obsessed with plants for most of my life as you can see lol (my mother is a herbalist and I wanted to become a botanist for quite a while.). Also philosophy/anthropology in little bits. I love Tim Ingold. Things about witches. Anything by Rebecca Solnit is incredible. 

- I’ve been reading a lot of YA recently, because it’s fun and quick and keeps me reading, and has a lot of good female characters. Big fave recently : Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore. It’s about a young bisexual woman who’s grieving and comes to this weird house full of doors, each of which leads to a different path in life, and we follow her through each choice she can potentially make, each of one becomes a different genre of story : creepy ghost story, spy story, sci-fi, cute romance, etc. It’s so innovative and it’s a story that is also bisexual culture at its core. Also I absolutely love love love love love (etc forever) the Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater. What she does with language is just so cool, because she stays simple and efficient but uses her metaphors in such a fulgurant, vivid way. Some of her lines are just. bam! genius. #goals. Also Ronan Lynch is probably THE character that helped me the most with my coming out. He’s one of my forever faves.  Of course Harry Potter, lmao, I was of the generation that pretty much grew up with him, the last book came out when I was 17. JK Rowling really should just stop rn. But I learned so much from those, about the importance of making your story feel like home, and having a clear emotional journey. And Harry is such a sarcastic little shit, I love him. And I love a Series of Unfortunate Events too, the darkly funny tone of it, the celebration of knowledge and resilience. 

- I think in terms of the classics (I had to read in school lmao), I do like Victor Hugo a lot even though some of his stuff just doesn’t fucking stop. I also like Balzac and his Comédie Humaine, he’s very observant, mean and funny when it comes to people (even though it’s depressing.) Colette is my grandma’s fave writer and she is a rockstar, I love her (also hella bi culture). Jane Austen is great, I read Pride and Prejudice in one night straight, I was so hooked. Love Jane Eyre too. I read On the Road by Jack Kerouac while hopped up on opioid pain killers and that’s probably the only way to appreciate it, but it did mark me.  

- But to be completely fucking candid, I probably read the most fanfic nowadays still. Esp since I got to college, I need to unwind when I read, and having characters you already know can be so comforting. Now, of course, there’s a lot of fanfic that is just fluff (nothing wrong with that) but I honestly really believe in the literary value of fanfic. Because some of that shit simply just really slaps and is well written. But also as a genre on its own : you just simply don’t get so much emotional nuance, and depth in most other things. Because these are characters we already know and the writers are not afraid to be self-indulgent and plot is secondary, we see shades of things that we never see anywhere else, we see relationships developping in the small things and wow that shit is breathtaking, bro, sometimes. The art of infinite variation on a theme. Even though a lot of fic writers could use a bit of stricter editing, and do stuff a bit too many unnecessary details in here, so does Victor Hugo soooooooo....

lol i could go on forever. i love book soooo much. uni kinda killed my reading appetite, I used to read several books a week when I was in middle school. hope i can get back there (although maybe not as much bc i have a life now lol.) but thinking about everything i have yet to read makes me sooooo happy. I want to get more into sci-fi, English lit classics. Basically I like stuff that’s witty, dark, political, hedonistic, with dry humor, but a warm heart. Stories that celebrate knowledge, curiosity and human weirdness. And that gets to the point. When I get bored by a book, I put it down, because I just don’t have the time. I also hate writers where you can tell that they think they’re better than other people. Misanthropy is boring. Thank you for this question anon I had a blast

#reading #books #book recs #literature #anon asks

[winteriron-trash]

About Me/FAQ

Hey, welcome to my blog! This is my -well, usually- Marvel-centric blog that has everything WinterIron, Bucky Barnes, and Tony Stark, as well as some general shitposts of my own wild adventures. I figured it’s best to keep up this trend of updating my ‘About Me’ page every follower milestone. So thank you all so much for over 3,000 followers, I never expected to break that many followers, let alone in less than a year on Tumblr. I appreciate each and everyone one of you, so really, thank you for sticking around with my bullshit.

Per the usual, I don’t do drama, I don’t do discourse. If you have a serious problem with me or anything I’ve written/done on this blog, please take it up with me personally. I will delete anon hate (if I get any, I haven’t gotten any yet…) and I think it’s all just pointless. I can be salty and derpy sometimes, but I will never purposely say something malicious. I’m not here for that negativity.

Now, to the FAQs.

Do you have an Ao3/Pillowfort/other social media?

I do have an Ao3, you can find me at Gothic_Lolita. I don’t cross-post everything, and a lot of my stuff on Ao3 isn’t WinterIron or even Bucky or Tony-centric, so if you’d like to see some other stuff I write, feel free to check over there. I don’t have a Pillowfort, nor do I plan on getting one. It took me forever to get this platform right, I’m not in the place to bother learning how to navigate a new one. I don’t do Snapchat or Instagram or Twitter because I am not nearly basic or cool enough for that stuff. The only social media I use is Tumblr and Pinterest, and trust me, my Pinterest is nothing interesting enough to be worth linking.

Do you have a tagging system?

I’m… trying, honestly. I’m trying to adjust my tags and systems because of the… wildness Tumblr is having with blocking and purging certain tags. I try to be funny in my tags, and I swear a lot, and apparently ‘fuck’ is being filtered out of the tag search, so that’s fun and completely screwed me over. As it stands, the important tags are ‘winteriron-trash writes’ (my writing tag), ‘shitposting with becca’ (any wild shitposts of my own sad creation), ‘not about marvel’ (any posts that are my general bullshittery and not Marvel related), ‘becca gives mediocre writing advice’ (a new tag I’m trying to use that’ll tag any post that I give writing advice on), ‘becca spills the tea’ (a tag for whenever I post my metas or opinions on Marvel characters, plots, etc), and the citrus scale which I explain in a post here

Do you write original fiction?

Yes, but I rarely, if ever, post it. I think I have all of one poem on Tumblr, any absolutely nothing original on Ao3. I write original works all the time, especially poetry and novels, but I’m super shy about being vulnerable and putting my stuff out there. I do wanna post my original writing somehow, but considering a fandom blog and Ao3 aren’t really the place for it, I’ll just keep it all hidden inside of me, and one day I’ll die. You’re more than welcome to ask me about any of my original writings, trust me, I am always willing to ramble about the shit I write, it’s pathetic.

What type of fanfiction do you write?

For this blog, mostly WinterIron fics or gen fics focused on Bucky or Tony. I do write about OT3s on here occasionally, but they usually include WinterIron in some way. Most of the time. I’ve somehow gotten to writing some weird stuff lately, to be honest. I’ll work with MCU, Sony Venom, and Spiderverse characters and canon, with the occasionally comic canon shoved in there. I have occasionally written crossover content with DC characters, but that usually relies on comic versions -or at least my own remixes of them- rather than the DCEU. On my masterlist, you can check out all the things I’ve written!

What are your ships besides WinterIron? NOTPs?

I’ll ship almost anything, and I’m a huge fan of rarepairs/interesting relationships simply to explore the possibilities of it, particularly when they include Bucky or Tony. My top OTPs besides WinterIron are currently Phlint, FalconShield, and BlackPepper. As for NOTPs, I strongly dislike Stucky, Stuckony, Thorki, and Staron for reasons of just not being able to see those characters together romantically. Feel free to send me the wildest rarepair your mind can think of, chances are I’ve probably already thought of it myself so I’d love the chance to ramble about/write for it. I’m a big fan of weird OT3s as well, just see the weird shit on my masterlist.

Are you in any fandoms besides Marvel?

I’m into DC, Star Trek, classic literature, Percy Jackson/HoO/Kane Chronicles, She-Ra, Carmen Sandiego, indie gaming, Supernatural, vulture culture, HYDRA Trash Party, and musicals. Yes, I’m aware I was born to be a geek. Trust me, I’ve grown very used to it.

Do you take prompts?

Honestly, sending me a prompt/headcanon/idea is a shot in the dark. I have prompts sitting in my inbox that has been there for about a year that I’ve been meaning to write. Chances are if you send me a prompt yes I’ve seen it, yes I think it’s lovely, but god I do not have the time. Occasionally a prompt will really grab my eye and I’ll just have to write something for it, but sometimes even that can take months to finish. Don’t be surprised if you send me a prompt and I randomly fill it seven months later. I’m prone to doing so. I love being tagged in existing prompt/headcanon posts and asked to write it (as I have a bad habit of hijacking posts to write stuff for them to begin with…) just know that once again the chances of me writing it are about a 50/50. Also, make sure the OP is okay with you asking me to write it, it’s never my intention to steal someone else’s spotlight, I just want to take cool ideas and throw my two cents in.

Is there anything you won’t write?

Drugs and alcohol are hard nos for me. They’re personal triggers that if you really want to know more about, you can send me an ask or message about. If I’ve listed something as a NOTP, I will not write anything with it. I strongly dislike writing kid fics, mundane AUs, damsel in distress Tony fics, and A/B/O, but I’m willing to work with an idea if it’s good enough. It really depends on the situation.

Do you offer writing advice/reviews?

Yep! I’m down to answer any questions on writing fanfic or just writing in general. I love talking about writing and all that. Seriously, I like talking about writing almost as much as I like talking about Marvel. I’m more than open to reading a few chapters of your fic or book or whatever and telling you my honest thoughts, but I probably won’t have time to read all of it if it’s more than 5k long, because I’m just a busy person. And I will be honest because I want to be helpful. Don’t ask me for my honest opinion if you just want your ego stroked.

Can I ask your opinion on [insert topic here]?

Always. I am always open to sharing my honest opinions, regardless of backlash I’ll receive for it. I’d rather be my honest self online -the one place I can be my honest self- then a fake mask made to please others. Whether it be fandom ships, in-universe meta, or non-fandom related topics, feel free to ask me. I love talking meta, or just general thoughts and opinions on random stuff. Trust me, I’m far too opinionated for my own good. Ask literally anyone who’s met me.

How long have you been writing?

All seventeen years of my sad, sad life. I loved writing stupid little stories when I was a kid, that slowly morphed into shitty “books”, then I went through a poetry phase in junior high, and when I was about 14 I wrote my first fanfiction. I posted my first fanfic when I was 15, and have been posting fanfiction for over a year and a half now. I started Tumblr in late February but didn’t start writing fics here until about March because I am a shy bitch.

Aaaaaaand now for some stupid shit about me you didn’t ask for.

My name is Becca, or Winter, or Dumbass, whatever you prefer, and I’m a dumbfuck 17 yr old lesbian from upstate New York. (The ‘upstate’ part is important. Don’t ask me if I live in NYC. Just don’t.) I’m a junior in high school and planning to study English and Marketing in college, to hopefully become an editor. Hopefully. I’m actually a pretty boring and dumb bitch, which makes it all the more concerning that I am steadily gaining popularity on this hellsite. Someone help me.

I mentioned some of my interests above, but some other stuff I’m into includes knitting, playing piano, tea, collecting (hoarding) notebooks, photography, editing, music, and being a general idiot. I’m a wild child in ripped jeans and a leather jacket, which should not fool you because I’m far too shy and afraid of everything to be cool like that. I sound a lot cooler online because I’ve gotten so used to online interactions from making friends and running my own Discord server, but in real life I am unrecognizable. I’ve been in a grade of 60 people with the same people since kindergarten and some of them still don’t know my name.

I’m mentally ill and all that, but we’re working on getting… better. Writing schedules are a mess from me and sometimes I’m falling apart so, that’s fun. It doesn’t usually affect my blog because I internalize that shit, but occasionally the self-deprecating humor can get to be a little too close to the truth. And just the general spastic nature of my blog reflects the utter chaos of my mind.

So anyway, that’s me, please be my friend. Also, because this seems to come up more and more. Please don’t be afraid of me/intimidated by me. I know I look all cool and popular, but I am literally a hot mess just like the rest of us. If you want to climb your way into my messages and just,,,, scream at me about something you think I’d like, or just scream in general, go ahead. I really won’t mind, I promise. I need… friends, or so my therapist tells me.

Oh, and here’s a face reveal.

Yes, I am that absolute idiot of a person, lying splat in the middle of my elementary playground field for,,,, reasons???? I don’t really remember the story behind that picture tbh, but it’s my entire personality in a single picture, so I dig it.

And here’s my actual face, with a cheap ring in my mouth and a fox filter because I thought I looked cute, okay? Leave me be.

Tadah.

I swear I’m funny and talented sometimes, please like me.

As always, feel free to send me an ask or a message about anything you’d like. 

Check out my Masterlist if you want, and join my Discord Server.

#about me #personal #not about Marvel #now you know who i am #updated #3k

[ourimpavidheroine]

The first glimpses of the new Turf Wars comic are being posted and let me just say, I fucking love Irene Koh’s artwork. Mine is winging its way to me as I type. Her gorgeous lines, the way she draws the connection between people - Korra and Asami of course, but also between the other characters - she is madly gifted and I will gladly pay to have her artwork in my hands.

My god, though. This painful coming out story. I just...really? I’d ask if that is what white cis hetero creator dudes think all queer characters need, but clearly that’s the case, because that’s what they keep giving us.

Repeat after me: There is more to queer romantic relationships - more stories to tell, more things to focus on - than homophobia!

And don’t get me wrong, I know it is well-meaning! I do not doubt that for a single second. I know that the intent here is to empower and uplift, to encourage and to be inclusive. But there is a reason why we need more diversification when it comes to the creators of fiction of any stripe, and this is exactly why.  There are more stories that are there to be told than the ones that the creators in charge think need to be told. (Or will be financially solvent, which is the determining factor nowadays. If the story won’t make money, it’s not worth telling. The end.)

I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: the very nature of speculative fiction means that you do not need to mirror the world we live in. Writing a grand epic fantasy story that is thinly based on medieval Europe? You do not need to make women a footnote in your story, or only include people of color as servants. For one thing, let’s keep in mind that history was written by white dudes who had some serious investment in writing history that made them look good. For another: speculative fiction.

I read an essay some years back that discussed why fanfiction would never be accepted as “real” fiction. It was a fuckton of self-congratulatory bullshit to wade through, but what it basically came down to was “real” fiction included “real” conflict whereas fanfiction did not.

Now obviously that’s not true: plenty of fanfiction includes conflict. But getting past that, my immediate thought after I finished reading it was, Fiction includes Conflict With A Capital C because it has been primarily the playing ground of white men. And they are the ones historically thriving on conflict.

As in, sure, Amy throwing Jo’s writing onto the fire is not conflict on the scale of  Westeros embroiling itself in war. But you know what? Just about every woman I know felt so deeply Jo’s anguish and betrayal over that; we totally understood why she cut Amy dead and refused to acknowledge her when they went skating. We felt that; it had impact, it had meaning. It was personal. (And let’s not discuss when Beth died; I sobbed for hours and hours, completely devastated.) 

But most men I know haven’t even read Little Women, and wouldn’t bother. Because it’s a girl’s story, you know? It’s a story written about four sisters and their life during the American Civil War; so it’s an old, outdated story about girls and they aren’t even fighting in the war! What could be interesting about that story? Give me Westeros! Give me epic battles filled with names and hundreds of dead, senseless carnage that numbs the reader and, in the scope of the overall story arc, is just one more horrific grand tragedy for the main characters to process.

Compared to that kind of conflict, what could I possibly learn from Amy’s brash act and her clear regret? From Jo’s refusal to forgive her? From two sisters who are always at odds because, despite their different personalities, they are so much alike? 

And it’s the same reason why well-meaning straight people write only difficult coming out stories for queer characters - especially for those who are embarking on romantic relationships. After all, we need to give tools to The Kids for dealing with the inevitable homophobia that they will obviously have to experience because Queer, right?

Well, okay, sure. There’s a lesson to be learned from that, I’m not denying that. But what about the lessons that can be learned about just being in a romantic relationship? Because I’ve been married twice: once to a man, once to a woman. Sometimes the issues that came up were universal, yes. Sometimes, however, they weren’t. And not because the world was homophobic, but because being in a relationship with someone of the same gender is different; differently culturally, different because of gender roles, etc. Sometimes queer kids need to see people who resemble them dealing with the breakdown of household chores or having a fight over who ate the last slice of pizza or which in-law they are going to go to for the holidays because when it comes down to it, that’s real life. That’s the nitty gritty of every single day in a relationship. And queer folks deserve to see themselves reflected in that as well, not just in how they have to deal with what the straight world sees as inevitable homophobia.

In other words, we have so many other stories than Coming Out And Dealing With Homophobia.

But see, that’s why I love Irene Koh’s artwork. Asami’s hand resting on Korra’s thigh; the way their embraces start out with their breasts barely touching and gradually become full body contact, the two of them molding around each other. There is a gorgeous story being told there of the relationship between these two women; told subtly, told sans drama or conflict or histrionics or evil bad dudes. Told sans institutionalized homophobia, even.

I want to read about Korra and Asami. I want to read about how Asami goes from the woman who clung to Mako in despair as her company failed to the woman who built her company back up at a desperately young age, resting her hand confidently on Korra’s thigh. I want to read about how Korra feels about this brilliant woman whose letters brought her back to life when she’d just about given up. I’m not interested in how the Fire Nation was homophobic (because of course they were, being the bad guys, hit me over the head with that sledgehammer of stereotypes again, why don’t you?). I don’t mind reading about epic spirit world conflict! But at the same time I want to know how Asami feels about polarbear dog fur all over everything and how Korra has to go back and forth into the spirit world because she’s the Avatar and that’s what she does and how Korra handles it when Asami quits traipsing around the spirit world on vacation and gets back to the grueling grind of actually running a business and spends 60+ hours a week doing something that Korra is singularly unequipped to help her with. That’s a part of their relationship that has nothing to do with coming out or homophobia. 

I’ve been given, over and over and over again, queer relationships that are framed and defined by coming out and/or homophobia; especially by straight people (well-meaning or not). I want more; I want to see their relationship framed and defined by them. As a queer person, I deserve it, damn it.

And that’s why I read fanfiction; or, you know, women’s fiction. Because sometimes life - real life, normal life - is epic enough. Conflict doesn’t always have to be the young farmboy (insert other normal, boring, average occupation here) thrust into an epic story of adventure and war; sometimes conflict is your sister burning your writing or the boy next door declaring his love when you don’t return it that way or even your mother trying desperately to make ends meet when your father is away at war. It doesn’t mean those stories are bad! I love Star Wars, too. But my very favorite moment of Book 3 was when Asami sauntered into the room on the airship that Korra was locked into, twirling those keys around her finger, flirting her ass off, while Korra - the Avatar, the most powerful woman in the world, a woman who could have easily bent through those restraints holding her - waited for Asami to come and free her. There was an entire story being told in that very small moment, that moment that meant nothing to the rest of the world, that was not part of the Red Lotus or the epic arc of the Legend of Korra. But it was the part of the story that I wanted to see more of, nevertheless. And it had nothing to do with coming out. Or homophobia.

So yes. I will purchase the comics. I want to support Irene Koh’s gorgeous art! But when it comes to the story of Korra and all of the people in her world, I’ll stick to fanfiction, thanks. It’s giving me the stories I actually want to read.

#Impavid goes blah blah blah

[toastweaselreads]

Rainbow Rowell’s “Fangirl”

Rating: 2.5/5 LGBTQA+? No Genre(s): YA, slice of life, romance-ish Enoby Approved: Meh. Read This Book If You Like: slice of life, realistic depictions of social anxiety, well-crafted characters Don’t Read This Book If You Can’t Handle: practically nonexistent plot, slow pacing, more loose threads than a cat’s favorite afghan

I really, really wanted to like this book. So badly. It came highly recommended to me by several friends, including my sister, who gave it rave reviews. I was apprehensive about reading this book because, as a fan and a fanfiction writer, I was so worried this was going to be a horrible misrepresentation of fandom. On that issue I was pleasantly surprised—but for the rest of it? ‘Didn’t do it for me’ does not even begin to cover it.

The Good, The Bad, The Meh, and The Cringe are all in my full review, which I have put under a cut. Warning, spoilers!

[Click here to read full review.]

____________________________________________________________

The Good

1) Character development. The character development in this book is phenomenal. All of the characters have their own voice, their own motives and agendas, they are flawed, and they all existed together with varying levels of Grrr. I loved that Rowell even went so far as to understand what people ate for breakfast, and the reactions of the other characters towards that food. I adored it. Also, yay for the ~weird fandom person~ making friends who love and gently tease / accept her fanfic, not shun her for it.

2) Accurate depictions of mental illness. Bipolar Dad, alcoholic sister,  a narrator with social anxiety, and all of it was handled well. Also, family that supports each other through their mental health issues and friends who step in to take care of/help out the people when they are struggling. Love love love that aspect of this novel.

3) Accurate depictions of fandom! This was my biggest worry. Thankfully, Rowell pulled it off pretty flawlessly. As a fanfic writer I have definitely been through everything Cath has been through. I feel you, girl. 

4) I enjoyed the dialogue. It was an extension of Rowell’s good character development. Mostly it was witty, and it made me smile, but sometimes it felt like she was relying too much on the dialogue and not enough on descriptions.

The Meh

1) Cath as a student stressed me the fuck out. The issues of Cath’s finals was sort of just……..dropped over her winter break and we didn’t learn about what was going on until she came back. I totally get taking an “I” when a family emergency comes up. Been there, done that. But at least email your professors! Mentions it somewhere in the text! Sweet Jesus.

Maybe that’s just a character flaw of Cath’s, but as a reader it was SO JARRING and uncomfortable to have the issue just drop off the face of the page for several chapters. Some sort of in text reference, even to Cath’s ignoring/avoiding it, would have been preferable.

2) The fanfic/book inserts didn’t do it for me. I tried to read them, but they were so blatantly HP ripoffs that at some point I just started skipping them. And I lost nothing at all. At first I thought they were going to foreshadow stuff that would happen in the novel—for instance, the one in the beginning about Simon and Baz being roomies but also hinting about their feelings. But nope. Alas.

3) Hetero bullshit. I came into this novel knowing it was going to be about straight love, and I was okay with that. I enjoy a good straight romance when it was well written. That being said....

Why did Nick exist, really? I thought he was going to be a love triangle contender; I was pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t, but in the end if Nick had been edited out of the novel his presence would not have been missed.

Additionally, the whole bit with Levi kissing the girl that wasn’t Cath and that whole bit just was not necessary. At all. It just felt like Levi was leading Cath on and I wasn’t here for it.

Also, why didn’t Cath and Reagan just get it on? They had the whole villains to friends thing going on, and considering that the Simon/Baz thing was running parallel to that, I thought that Cath and Reagan getting together made the most sense. I was pulling for it, actually, despite the straight romance cover. But nope, the only gays that existed were in Cath’s fanfic.

We could have had it all. Alas.

The Bad

1) This book was So. Fucking. Slow. I have a “100 page” rule, which means that if I read 100 pages of a book and it doesn’t grab me, I give up. This book narrowly eeked by—I was at page 80 and wondering how I could go on for 20 more pages. The next time I looked at the pages I was up to 120, so somewhere in there it picked up enough to not feel like I was reading through molasses.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love slice of life. It’s one of my favorite genres. However, I like my stories paced a little faster than this. 

2) Loose ends. What happened to Cath’s short story for her professor?! What did she end up writing? Did she finish Carry On? I understand some books don’t wrap up some loose ends, and that’s okay, but there were so many loose ends that it just left me feeling very frustrated.

3) Plot? What plot? There was nothing that really kept the story going, at least for the first third. I had to force myself through the first 80 pages, which is not how I want to start a novel. It picked up a bit with the sister/mom/dad issues, and with the Levi drama, etc. I wish there had been some overarching plot to tie the slice-of-life scenes together; the Carry On stuff was…sort of that plot thread, but it was not emphasized and felt unimportant until at least halfway through the book.

4) Pacing. Sort of goes with plot, but also, the sudden time skips were so jarring, especially towards the end. Why? Just why?

The Cringe

1) Blatant Harry Potter Rip Off. I get copyright, I really do. I also understand the need to parallel a pop culture phenomenon in a way that non-fandom readers could understand. But to rip Harry Potter and Drarry fanfic off that hard? C’mon, Rowell. You could have done so much better.

She had that whole rant on plagiarism from Professor Piper, and the she literally ripped lines straight from the HP movies and books and just changed the speaker’s name. I would have loved for her to have created her own Pop Culture Reference that wasn’t a HP ripoff. Then we as fans would have gotten to learn more about that fictional world in a world through Cath’s fanfic, which would have made the fanfic and book excerpts make sense. Also, that would have made the fanfic/book excerpts much more engaging for the readers.

But nah, blatant HP/Drarry ripoff it was.

2) Even I, a known fanfic writer, know better than to turn fanfic into a grade. I cringed so hard. I had to put the book down and take a minute. No member of fandom, or writer for that matter, would ever be that stupid. Jesus.

Sidebar: I would have love to have seen Levi and Cath work together as a cute couple to create a story that Cath could write for her final thing.

TL;DR:

Despite the fact it came to me glowing recommendations, Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl was just not my thing. It might be someone else’s thing, but not mine. While the characters were good and the accurate depictions of both mental illness and fandom warmed my heart, the pacing, lack of plot, and blatant Harry Potter rip off turned me off of this book completely. The bouquet of loose threads and occasional cringe at hetero drama was just an added awful bonus.

However, these are all just my opinions. I know people who loved Fangirl. So if you think Fangirl might do it for you, give it a go. The worst you can realize is that it isn’t for you.

#fangirl #rainbow rowell #booklr #review #book review

[a-scribbling-intruder]

Fanfic Recs pt.1

Soo this was long overdue. I don’t really read fanfic that often, and when I do it is mostly things other people have reccomended to me. So i’ve always wanted to create my own rec list to return the favour, but somehow never got around to it. So yay years later, here’s at least a start. Will probably sort it better if i update it. Anyways if fanfic and any of these fandoms are your cup of tea, enjoy. Mostly gen and either humour or horror, it think. Fandoms included: Harry Potter, Death Note, MCU, LOTR, Sherlock Holmes, Original Fiction and weirdly, Samurai Champloo

Harry Potter (and Crossovers with Harry Potter)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9238861/1/Applied-Cultural-Anthropology-or Applied Cultural Anthropology (Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Cruciatus)  (Hermione/Tom Riddle) Really well done, pairing is not the main focus (they’re not even together yet), instead hermione being her usual brilliant self but being sorted into slytherin. She isn’t just suddenly evil, she’s still righteous and wants to better the world. But exactly this (with a little help of a unassuming black diary) leads her down a slippery slope. (Ongoing.)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11160991/1/0800-Rent-A-Hero 0800-Rent-A-Hero. Harry has finally gotten rid of snake-face and settled down with Teddy and Andromeda. Cue inter-dimensional space vortex opening in his living room. Summoned from his finally peaceful life by Dumbledore and the Order to solve their voldemort problem, Harry is less than pleased. But can he truly just ignore them? Grudgingly „Harry White“  accepts the free post as divination teacher at hogwarts and starts befriending his female interdimensional counterpart, Iris Potter, all while wanting to get revenge on Dumbledore and trying not to get too involved with Tonks… The beginning is a bit grizzly but overall it is definitely  more on the humorous side, and also poking fun at so many fandom chliches! (Last updated 6 months ago, so there is still hope…)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10954546/1/Framed-Fractured Framed and fractured. During the fiendfyre-incident in the Room of Requirement Harry barely escapes through some kind of black hole. Now he’s stuck as a painting in the RoR, with a surprisingly sane, young and healthy looking Tom Riddle as the only visitor. The painting only decipts a bleak room, the door is shut and strange shadows lurk in the 4th wall whenever the RoR is not used. There is also an old diary there, speaking of monsters just outside of the room… – very interesting start, tom and harry haven’t really interacted yet but the descriptions of the timelessness in the painting and the “unexplained horror” vibe are fab. (Ongoing.)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10136762/21/ The Case of the Man who was wanted. (Harry Potter x Sherlock crossover) Harry Potter lives as a fugitive after being accused and imprisoned of a string of murders after the defeat of voldemort. Sherlock gets called to solve the case of the mysterious death of the Dursley couple in Surrey and finds known terrorist and fugitive Harry Potter inside, who, unexpectedly, claims to be innocent. Sherlock gets involved in not only the world of witchcraft and wizardry, but also in a strange man who seems kind of hollow and has many well-kept secrets… (Again, the kind of lovecraftian creepy horror vibe i love. Ongoing.)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/11115934/1/The-Shadow-of-Angmar The Shadow of Angmar. (HP x LOTR crossover) Harry gets summoned by the witch king as „the master of Death“. Broken and battered, he starts searching for a way home in an unknown world where his magic doesn’t work. Has FANTASTIC world building and a very bitter and world-weary Harry. (Ongoing)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/425428 The Calculator by katsu. THIS IS MY FAVORITE FANFIC IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. Just imagine Good Omens but more superheroes-and-supervillain themed. Loki is not going full villain like in the thor movie, but instead is more of a chaotic-neutral kind of guy more keeping the supervillainery for appearance’s sake and the occasional meddling to aleviate the boredom. But then he takes the meddling a bit too far, and karme comes to bite him in the butt. Big time. I really don’t want to say more about the plot bc it is so brilliant and original. Just read it. Also, have a quote (this is only a footnote, actually, so imagine what the real fic mus be like): “yes, he had filled several little leather-bound diaries with childish scrawls of red ink that read things like, “Die Thor” and “You never really accepted me!” And then he’d attended a few sessions of primal scream therapy and taken a modern dance course at the local community college. Between finding a constructive way to express his anger and making some lovely friends that he still had tea with every Wednesday afternoon while they chatted manicures, fashion, and lap dogs, he felt much more comfortable in his own skin these days. All it had really taken was escaping the poisonously macho atmosphere of Asgard, which according to Kevin was something like living in Omaha and not being interested in Football.“

http://archiveofourown.org/works/5460221 Genesis by teaberryblue. Reluctant to make the truth about their secret weapon known, the American Government tells the world that Captain America is a man named Steve Rogers.  According to public record, he died, tragically, in 1945, and he became legend.In 1998, the Avengers find a body trapped in ice. She’s alive. Her name is Eve. She has Captain America’s shield. Featuring a slightly different cast as the Avengers and brilliant discussion of gender issues, kinda whimsical-poetical writing style. (Oneshot, completed.)

Death Note

http://archiveofourown.org/works/461685 Murmur in the Shell. Light Yagami’s dead, L is dead. Yet the idea of them stays in the world, embodied by black notebooks that always will fall. History repeats, even if nobody wants to be a part of it. After all, there will always be new players. (Near, new!Kira. Really nice, jus a short ficlet about the roles we sometimes must play and the ideas of dead men  we pick up along the way.) (Oneshot, completed).

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9380249/2/ Rationalising Death. Light Yagami finds the Death Note, we know the rest. But in this story, light talks all his steps through with his inner voices (like „Test It“ aka „Death“, Moral which everyone kinda ignores and also could be called Caution, or Practice). Its less cracky than it sounds now, i promise. Rather, it’s a very interesting character study bc it doesn’t just paint Kira as a sociopath with a god-complex (well, that too -) but explains his actions as being very, very human (while not excusing them). Seems to be dead at 10 chapters but i still would recommend reading it bc its brilliant, the style is a bit like hpmor’s. It explains the thought processes of everyone (L, Light, Misa, Ryuk, all that jazz)) very thoroughly and is also quite amusing (light comparing hinself to batman consantly, e.g.). But the best part is probably Misa’s characterisation (i’m not gonna spoil it for you but omg) –> https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10580913/1/Rationalising-Fiction Rationalising Fiction also check out this nice lil’  timestamp (recursive ff?) of another author wherein Misa realises she is a fictional character. Very meta, very lovely.

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8415898/1/God-of-the-Machine God of the Machine by The Carnivourous Muffin. The OC/SI Anna Jones suddenly appears in Light Yagami’s bedroom. When you read about fictional characters they can fall kind of flat, not that they’re not interesting but you always know they’re not really like you. Light seems less scary, L less creepy and Misa… well Misa always seems insane, even in the Manga. So Anna Jones is fucking terrified, curses herself for not paying better attention to the details in the manga and has to consider her survival and the prices she’s willing to pay. (Yes, this is the Self-Insert Trope but played so well. Also very philosophical. Ongoing. Also, go read everything by this author while you’re at it.)

Other

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/9915682/5/ The Last Christmas. A industrial engineer takes up the mantle of santa claus and gets some dangerous ideas about the true meaning of Christmas… (No fandom, or is that like the mythology fandom?, anyways, it’s creepy and give’s you some food for thought, although the story itself isn’t that polished. Very interesting and original take on santa claus!) (Completed.)

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/2865379/1/Nenju Nenju. Samurai Champloo. Because no anime has ever kindled a bigger need for a love triangle. This one’s fairly good and really long, with a nice dose of angst but a happy ending. (Mugen/Fuu, Jin/Fuu, Mugen/Yanusha)

#fanfic rec #fic rec #death note fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #rec list #if anyone ever reads this enjoy #how do i put a cut in this srsly #typos in abundance bc mobile #also bc english tbh #sorry for that