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yellowocaballero · 3 years

Note

hi i know it's been the hottest of seconds but director's cut for the prophetic spring if you're still doing these? 👀

Sure! I’ve spoken a lot about the prophetic spring, but I’m fairly certain I could give some meta information about my intense life-long obsession with Tim Drake. Dude has been showing up in my fics since I was 14.

But actually, the ficlet I wrote ages ago might be more interesting? So here it is. Exploring a dynamic that was WAY underserved for how important it is: the Steph, Cass, Tim dynamic!

No CW that haven’t appeared in the prophetic spring, but specific mention for drug addiction and drug depiction, as well as references to molestation, abortion, torture, and suicide. Story under the cut.

Tim stared down into the toilet bowl. It was a little yellowed. He needed to clean it.

He stared at the small baggie of pills in his hand.

He visualized dropping it into the bowl, flushing it. Possibly mutating an alligator, or giving the race of mole people that lived in the Gotham sewers a nice surprise.

Tim sighed, and pocketed the drugs. Maybe tomorrow.

A month after the incident with a runaway foster kid and a, in retrospect, kind of embarrassing fake fight with his older brother, Tim got a text from an unknown number. To make matters worse, it was at an insane hour of the day - noon.

Texts from strangers were hardly uncommon. Tim had an extensive contact network, growing larger by the day, but he had set up a Google Voice on his computer so they were all routed through a program there. Being bothered at all hours of the day on his phone was hardly his idea of a good time. The only people who really had his real number were his bullshit ‘friends’ and his asshole ‘family’. He hadn’t even given his number to his ‘friends’ - he had given it to Kon under strict confidentiality, and then Kon had given it to all of Young Justice. Asshole.

405-555-1998: dropping by in three hours so make sure ur presentable :)

As Tim had just woken up, most of his brain was occupied by a single whuh?

Just as his mind swirled in sleepy confusion, his phone buzzed again.

405-555-1998: B1706XQE45

The code checked out. It was an ally, not an unknown or an enemy.

Tim groaned, covering his eyes with an elbow. He needed coffee.

****

The coffee was a new thing - rather, it was something he had drunk plenty of growing up, because there had been nobody around to inform him that coffee was bad for developing brains. Growing up completely unsupervised was probably why Tim was a drug addict now. He could totally blame this on his parents never loving him.

Not a drug addict, Tim thought to himself anxiously as the coffee sputtered into the extra large gallon pot. Just someone who...uses drugs...in an unhealthy way. Substance abu - substance user, who just used it maybe as a bad coping mechanism. Not that Tim had good coping mechanisms, but it was better than sawing off heads or becoming a drug lord. When you thought about it, it was either being a serial killer or doing drugs, so logically it means that he should do more drugs to decrease the amount of fun little murders he does -

Tim made toast.

The coffee was a new thing, because he was trying to use it to replace the drugs. He had cut back. The stupid little sorority that called themselves the Birds of Prey had been talking to him about it. He had agreed to try. It was best to set expectations low, so he couldn’t disappoint. Actually, Tim loved disappointing, maybe he should set them higher. Maybe he could make inspirational speeches about how he was a good guy now? Ha ha.

The three hours had been a deft move. The texter knew noon was his average wake-up time at best, and the three hours gave him enough time to sober up if he had been high or drunk at the time. Tim didn’t like to start popping the minute he woke up, but - well, sometimes he did. Or sometimes he was awake at noon because he had been on an all-nighter drug binge. They hadn’t given their name, either, which meant that it was somebody who he wouldn’t want to see.

He could bounce, escape to some corner of Gotham until they gave up. Except he had the sense that whoever had gone through the effort to get his number wasn’t the type to give up. Almost nobody Tim knew was the type to give up. His ‘friends’ and his ‘family’ never gave up. On anybody but him.

A voice in his head, not quite yet suffocated, sounding altogether too much like the Replacement, echoed in endless attempts to get him to come back. Oh, whatever. Kid was a try-hard. He needed better taste in made up families.

Over the next three hours, he debated his tactics. If he wasn’t escaping and the texter was playing the buddy card, then the situation probably wasn’t dangerous. He strapped in his armor under the baggy pyjamas that he never took off anyway, and spitefully made no effort to control his hair. He did put on make-up, an old hand from keeping CPS off Bruce’s trail - man, he should have pretended Bruce was molesting him, that would have been funny as fuck - to hide the bags under his eyes. No use looking pathetic.

He hid a few more weapons around his apartment. He anxiously checked his phone, staring not at the new texts but at Harley’s offer sent a week ago. He still hadn’t replied. He didn’t know what to do with it.

As if he could ever feel safe sleeping under the same roof as her?

As if he ever felt safe anywhere?

Maybe he had nothing to lose. That was the greatest part about this, the most wonderful aspect of what he had done to everybody in his life. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. That’s freedom, or so Janis had always told him. She knew what she was about. Overdosing on heroin at 27 - that was understanding what it meant, to have nothing. To be free. He was almost jealous.

At two on the dot, a polite knock echoed through the apartment. Tim looked up from where he was relaxing on the couch, with all of the possible entry points in his line of sight. That wasn’t a knock he had memorized, and he had memorized everyone’s knocks.

Nothing for it. He’d have to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Maybe he can pull the insane sociopath schtick again; that had always been effective in ditching his parents. Tim sighed, walked over to the door, swiped his thumb against the keypad, undid the three deadbolts, and opened door only to see -

Stephanie Brown, hands propped on her hips and smiling widely. Cassandra Wayne, standing right behind her, serene as ever.

Tim closed the door - or he tried. Steph had expected the move, and the minute he had opened the door her foot had jutted out and blocked him from closing the door. Effortlessly, she wrenched it back open and stepped into his apartment, forcing him to press against the wall and scowl as insane women infiltrated his space.

“Wow,” Steph said loudly, “this place looks like a wreck!”

Tim groaned.

***

The thing with Steph and Cass was this:

How to describe it?

The sister he had never expected, the best friend he had never thought he would have. Cass was his twin, Robin’s shadow, the other side of his mountain. Bruce had adopted Cass barely five months after he became Robin, and Tim had unabashedly resented her for stealing Bruce’s attention so quickly. He had always liked her more, but Bruce had liked everyone more than Tim, so maybe it was no surprise. She was sweet, kind, gentle, and no trouble. Tim wasn’t any trouble either, but he couldn’t be the rest of it if it bit him in his ass.

Robin was the brain. Cass was the muscle. They were a team so closely linked, conjoined at the hip, that Tim couldn’t remember a patrol ever done without her. Bruce had let them start patrolling alone at fourteen (“You didn’t let me work alone until I was fifteen, and I was an assassin,” Damian had spat), and they had been an unbeatable team. Robin’s hand-to-hand was weak, but nobody ever got through Batgirl. Batgirl struggled with technical knowledge, reading and writing and investigating and chasing down leads, the only area where Tim had ever excelled. Together, they had almost been as good as Batman. Sometimes, Tim had let himself think that they might be better.

They had been so similar. Everyone had always said so. They’re both so quiet, the Justice League had said. Emotionless little freaks, the Rogues had said. Neither of them blink, their schoolmates had said. But there had been nothing to say, not between them: they could have a conversation without words, without even Sign. Cass had known every twitch of Tim’s body, had understood him down to his core. Nobody else ever had. Everybody had always called Tim inscrutable and impossible to understand - but to Cass, Tim had been an open book. She knew every inch of him. And she had loved him anyway.

And Steph! When Steph had found them when they were fourteen veering on fifteen, and from then on it was as if she had always been there. She was so big, so smiling, so much, and she had never apologized for any of it. Nothing scared her. To Tim, that was the perfect vigilante - somebody who was scared of nothing, who never hesitated, who was good.

Not even Bruce could intimidate her. When Tim was fourteen, he had thought that was the most amazing thing in the world. Bruce intimidated everyone, but Steph had just stuck out her tongue and kept badly backflipping off roofs anyway. Through twin convincing, Tim and Cass had convinced Bruce to give her a chance, and Spoiler had slot into their dynamic perfectly. She was their best friend, always.

She wasn’t good at hand-to-hand at first, but Tim had improved by then, and they could cover her. She improved faster than he had, and judging from the reconnaissance footage Tim had frantically consumed after he came back to life, she was amazing now. She was wickedly smart, practical and down to Earth. If Tim was better at hacking into a computer, Steph was the one who found the post-it note with the password stuck under the desk.

But more than any of that, she had brought the social skills. She had brought the calming presence, the sweet hand to victims and civilians, and her good humor was infectious. Steph was good with people. She was a born leader. Resilient. Brave. Everybody liked her. Everybody loved her. Tim had. She had loved him too. She could have done so much better than Tim and Cass, weird little societal rejects, but she had chosen them as her family.

It had been the three of them. For as long as Tim’s life had meaning, for as long as he had been loved, they had loved him. Tim had grown up alone, in a world of one, and they had infiltrated it. They had expanded it, and they dragged his life into more than just Tim. Into Tim-and-Cass-and-Steph. Into Robin-Batgirl-Spoiler. Into meaning, and love.

Tim hated them. And he wanted them to suffer.

“That’s the Stephanie Brown I remember,” Tim sneered, closing the door behind him. Steph had quickly thrown herself onto Tim’s couch, clearly somewhat surprised at how comfortable it was, and Cass had perched daintily on the arm. Cass had always refused to sit like a normal person - she would rather sit on the backs of sofas, or on the arm, or perched on chairs like a bird - “If I had known you were coming I would have jumped cities.”

“We would have chased you down and you know that,” Steph said cheerfully, like she said fucking everything. “Besides, if you had known we were coming you would have gone into witness protection. You’ve been avoiding the fuck outta us.”

“Wonder why,” Tim said, injecting as much mean-spirited sarcasm into his voice as possible. “I need more coffee, don’t go through my shit.”

The apartment was small, and the kitchen had a cut-away wall where he could see through into the living room. Stephanie hated nothing more than being ignored or looked down upon, and if he dismissed her and didn’t react then she’d grow infuriated with him and leave. He couldn’t fight with her, because if it came down to a battle of rhetoric or emotions she’d win single-handedly. She was so good with words. Cass...had no weaknesses.

Which was inconvenient, because it was Cass he absolutely had to get rid of as soon as possible. She was very emotional, and more than a little sensitive. Especially to rejection. If he was cruel enough to her, she’d start crying and leave. There was only one problem with that.

As he jammed more grounds into the machine he watched the girls out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t talking or whispering to each other, both fully aware of how well Tim could read lips. They weren’t even having one of those body language conversations they could only have with each other, aware that Tim could crack that too. Instead Stephanie was casually sprawled on his couch, looking for all the world like a middle aged dad watching the football game, looking around the room. Cass, as usual, was zoning out. Or, of course, looked like she was zoning out - Tim could tell that she was waiting for something to happen, and was preparing herself for it.

Shit. Tim fought the urge to gnaw on his fingernail. Cass was going to be a problem.

He risked another glance backwards. She could see him, so she knew. Fuck. He had never been on the other side of her mind reading. It was fucking inconvenient. Psychics should be shot on sight.

The coffee sloshed into the biggest cup he could find in his kitchen, and Tim began draining it immediately as he leaned over the cutaway. He kept the cup held up to his face, obscuring it. Face covered, everything under the elbows covered - best he could do without preparation.

“This little field trip sanctified by Sgt. Brother?” Tim asked, sipping the scalding hot coffee. Not hot enough. He needed - he needed - they’d see -

“We’re nineteen, we don’t need his permission for everything we do,” Steph said, amused. So she was going to speak for Cass - hardly unusual, as whenever they were all together Steph tended to be the only one who spoke - but seeing as Tim was Tim then it was definitely a strategy.

“He lets his precious baby sisters knock on the door of drug lords for fun?” Tim sneered.

“If they’re incompetent and retired, sure!”

Tim gritted his teeth. Don’t rise to her bait. Don’t. She was the best person in the family at getting a rise out of their enemies. He didn’t stand a chance.

“What do you want?”

“We thought we’d take you roller skating at the rink,” Steph chirped.

Tim stared at her.

“Or the pool,” Steph said, faux-thoughtfully. “Or just the mall?”

Fuck this. Tim headed for the door, ready to walk out of the building barefoot in his pyjamas. He tugged at the doorknob, only to find that it wouldn’t open.

Tim breathed in through his nose, then out through his mouth. There were other exits. He was not trapped. Had his apartment always been so small? He could have sworn that it was bigger.

He turned around slowly. Stephanie was grinning at him, twirling what looked like a small plastic cylinder. Tim recognized it instantly - fancy League tech. Overrides all electronic locks and controls them. They all used it to trap perps and heighten their fear tactics. Tim jammed his thumb on the keypad. Nothing happened.

Cass glanced at Steph, and made a small motion. Tim couldn’t interpret it. Why couldn’t he interpret it? Did they have a new code? It was Cass. When nobody else had understood her, Tim always had. Now they had their own language, one that Tim couldn’t interpret anymore. Tim was lost in translation, always drifting.

“We aren’t bringing you in,” Steph said, just as light as ever. No trace of pity or caution or gentleness in her voice: just relentless cheer. “Literally all we want to do is talk. Play a board game, maybe?”

Tim’s eyes flickered to the hidden panel in the wall next to him where he had stashed a gun and a sword.

“Bro,” Steph said, “you really don’t want to escalate this.”

“Do you think you can take me?” Tim asked curiously, letting his hand drift to his arm. He shook his long pyjama sleeve down to cover his wrist. “That’s pretty cute. Last time I checked, you’re the shittiest at hand-to-hand in your team.”

But Steph just rolled her eyes. Shit, wasn’t he supposed to be ignoring her? He couldn’t, not so long as she kept pushing and pushing. Not so long as she was in his house. “Leave off. Just because Jay and I are the last people in the fam who weren’t trained in Mystical Ninja Arts doesn’t mean I’m incompetent. Hands in the air, by the way.”

Stephanie was overly sentimental. New tactic. He raised his hands slightly in the air, caught reaching for the weapon hidden in his armor. “Incompetent enough to let me die.”

There. Finally. Thank god, Tim thought he was losing his touch. The muscles clenched in Stephanie’s jaw, and just a twitch of her eye - banishing a bad memory. “Everybody’s been saying you’ve turned rude. I guess you’ve just been avoiding us because you don’t want to hurt our feelings, right?”

“I didn’t remember a lot when I was first resurrected,” Tim said casually, despite the fact that he had never told anybody about the first awful six months. Something about Steph and Cass just pried it out of him, like invasive surgery. Or an autopsy. “I remember everything about those six months, though. Homeless. Practically retarded. Brain damage does that to you, you know. I lived on the streets, did you know that? It was a miracle I lived through it.” He gasped, as if he was remembering something. “I slept on 34th street! You lived near there, didn’t you? Maybe you even walked by me.”

Steph went white. Cass’ expression froze. He was pushing hard, but these two wouldn’t react to anything less. Steph could trade barbs better than he could, even now.

“It’s a good thing Talia found me,” Tim continued. “She was the only one who cared.”

That did it. Steph tensed, leaning forward, and even Cass stiffened. “Is that what she told you? How can you believe her?”

Tim just shrugged, walking back to the kitchen and hiding his body language again. He took an extra loud slurp of the coffee, just to be annoying. “Talia never lied to me. She said that nobody cared enough to save me. And guess what!”

Steph’s jaw clenched again. She was a hot head. A fierce temper, an impulsive girl who jumped in feet first and sanity second. Woman, now. When had that happened? “Cut that shit out. We all know what you’re doing. You’ve been doing it to everyone. Did you think Connor didn’t warn us?”

Snitch. Tim slurped his coffee again. “Connor’s been telling everyone to give me space.”

“Yeah, everyone but us.” She stood up now, ignoring the flicker of a frown on Cass’ face, and folded her arms. A challenge against the world. Against Tim. It didn’t matter. “You don’t believe half the shit you’re spewing. You’ve never believed your own bullshit, Tim. You’re just saying it to drive everybody away. It’s not going to work on us.”

“Why?” Tim asked innocently. “You’re too thick?”

“Because we love you!” Steph cried. Tim rolled his eyes. As if he hadn’t heard that one before. “Saving Richie proved it, you aren’t as insane as you keep pretending you are. You know what you’re doing is wrong, you just don’t care.”

“Wow, you caught me.” Tim took another long swig of his coffee. It was making his hands jittery. Good. “Local genius aware of his actions. Call the press. Call Uncle Clark, he needs a scoop.” He arched an eyebrow at Steph. She hated that expression of his - she had always found it so aristocratic and pretentious. Joke’s on her, he was pretentious. “Do you mind if I go do a line? I’m not high enough for this conversation.”

If she had told him who she was, he would have done a line anyway just to spite her, and she knew it. “You don’t want to try,” Steph said stubbornly, “but you’re trying. You don’t want to care, but you care. You don’t want to feel it, but it hurts so much you can’t bear it. You can’t get anything past us, Tim. It’s always just been us. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Doesn’t that mean -

“What that means,” Tim said, and he found the words scraping his throat. He found himself talking a little louder than he meant to. The coffee, you know. Made you jittery. “is that you should have saved me. If you loved me so fucking much, you would have been anything other than useless. You’ve always been the most useless girl in the world, Steph. You couldn’t save your crook of a dad or your junkie of a mom. You couldn’t save your baby and you couldn’t save me. You’re ghetto trash putting on airs, and everyone can smell it on you.”

As soon as he said it, he tensed. He shifted his stance, ready to throw the coffee and spill the scalding liquid on her. Obscure her vision. It would take a second for her to vault the cover, so he could duck down. From there he could get the gun, shoot the window, jump out the window. She couldn’t win. Tim had the most powerful weapon in the world in his disposal and that was his infinite, burning hate. His hate for Steph and Cass burned him to the ground, and his world with it, and he was going to burn them to cinders because he couldn’t do anything else.

But Steph didn’t move. Cass got off the sofa. She walked up to Steph, and gently pressed a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed. Steph exhaled, long and shaking, and nodded at Cass. She walked into Tim’s bedroom - hey! - and shut the door.

Then Cass stared at Tim, and there was no more need for words. Not between them.

Tim vaulted the cut away wall, aiming for her feet first. Cass didn’t dodge - that would imply that she moved like an object moved. She moved like water moved - swift and supple, with such infinite grace and precision that it was like she wasn’t human at all.

But he had gotten better. He didn’t spend two and half years trained by the League of Assassins in crochet. Tim lashed out with a foot, she dodged again. He threw a punch, she moved. He feinted, clearly leaving her an opening, and she didn’t take it.

Bitch.

Cass shoved away his coffee table, sending it skidding across the floor and opening the floor space. The rug became their arena, tight and intimate, no room for maneuverability. Tim acted and she reacted, Tim lashed out a sweep kick and she jumped over it, Tim tried to grapple and she broke his hold. She never threw him to the ground, never pinned him. She just moved.

She was good, but not good enough to toy with him and win completely. The way to win against Cass was to leverage your height - Tim was taller than he once was, although that wasn’t saying much - weight, and strength against her. A couple good hits and she was down.

The issue, of course, was hitting her.

He got a hit in. It was much easier when she wasn’t even fighting back. She rolled with it effortlessly, taking the impact to gain a little space between them. She breathed deeply, sweat rolling down her neck. Tim used to take a cold compress and press it to that neck. She used to smile at him. Thank you.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said.

“Too bad,” Tim said.

Fights weren’t like in television, long and choreographed extended scenes to entertain and thrill. When Ro - Tim was in a fight, a real fight, it was typically finished in less than a minute. The only way that a match can get long is if the other person was deliberately tiring you out - a risky strategy - or if you were of completely equal strengths with similar fighting styles. Or if it was a spar.

As Tim tried to hit her again and again, he realized that it was a spar.

No, not even that. It was a conversation.

Tim grabbed her wrist, and said: I want you to hurt. Cass broke the hold, telling him that he can’t. Tim leveraged the motion and kneed her in the back, telling her that the only goal of this fight was pain. Cass let the impact take her down to the mat, an incredibly disadvantageous position, but rolled out of the way just as Tim tried to exploit the opportunity. I’m not scared of you. Tim hit again, and again, and again, failing every time. I want you gone, Tim said, and this is the only way I know how to do it.

This is what Tim said: as much as I once loved you, I now hate you. The infinite depths of my love, my twin sister, how we moved in perfect sync. I hate it all. As much as I cared, I now hate. Feel this hate. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said.

They moved in perfect sync, even now. Cass couldn’t predict his movements before he made them, like she used to - his training was different now, developed and refined. But Cass knew the League of Assassins too, had been trained by them just as he had, and they were written into her bones when they were only carved into Tim’s. After his third patented Talia move, she adjusted to fit his style, and their fight metamorphosed into more of a dance. Like they used to.

“Why not!” Tim screamed, the stupidest possible thing to do in a fight, but Cass didn’t take advantage of his exhale. He lashed out a fist to cover the opening, but it was lazy and over-extended, and she dodged easily. “I’m going to kill you!”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Tim desperately tried to call the green to his vision. It was so easy. All he had to do was tap into that rage. Talia had called it blood lust. Said it was normal, even good. But it wouldn’t come. Where was it? It was his only friend.

Desperately, Tim went in for another punch to the face - Cass’ jaw was the weakest part of her body, an old injury - but he over-extended again, and this time Cass took the opportunity. She grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, dropping him to the mat. She didn’t try to twist him around, instead landing him on his back. Bad move for her.

She kneed him in the chest, putting her full hundred and thirty pounds on him. She twisted his hands behind his back, pinning him, and Tim could do barely more than wheeze.

He looked at her in the eyes for the first time. They were infuriatingly calm. Her hair was tangled and clumped with sweat, but she wasn’t breathing hard. Her expression was placid and serene, as if she was watching one of her stupid fucking nature documentaries instead of pinning her brother to a hard and scratchy rug in a shithole apartment, three years after he was tortured to insanity and shot himself in the head.

So much time had passed. So much had happened, nasty and festering and putrid, and Tim had let it happen. He had made it happen. There was a rot in Tim, and it had eaten him up until there was nothing inside. If you cut him open, would it spill out? Would it infect her, infect Steph? Could he make them suffer?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass repeated. “So don’t be scared.”

“Scared?! I’m not fucking -” Tim wheezed, cut off by the lack of air as Cass pressed down.

“I’m sorry you’re scared. I didn’t mean to leave you alone. But I did. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to kill -”

Cass pressed down on his chest again, cutting him off. She had finally done the one thing nobody in Tim’s life had ever figured out: how to make him shut up. “You can be as mean to me as you want. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll stay.”

Tim wheezed. In that, maybe, Cass heard something, because she continued as if he had spoken. Or maybe she just wanted the chance to talk. It had been stolen from her for thirteen years, and it was valuable to her.

“You do not have to be kind. You do not have to hug me, even if I want you to. You do not have to be my brother. I know it hurts too much. But you are me. I am you. You do not even have to try for that. I do not have to give it to you. You have it.”

Tim couldn’t help it. He cried a little, and then he couldn’t stop.

Cass got off him, but she kept her promise. She didn’t hug him. She just propped him up against the sofa, holding his hand, and didn’t speak. At some point the door creaked, and he felt Stephanie next to him.

This is why, Tim thought hysterically, he had been avoiding them.

He knew this would happen. There was no hiding from Cass. There was no posturing, no pretending. She didn’t want anything from him. She never had. There was nothing he could say that would drive her away, because Cass did not listen to the words people spoke. She spoke only for clarity, when she could not afford for her words to be misconstrued, and for the comfort of others.

Cass knew that he had been lying out of his ass. Cass knew that he wasn’t as insane as he pretended, as cruel as he wanted to be.

He couldn’t make Cass hate him. Shit.

None of them said anything. Nothing needed to be said, not between the three of them. Cass might be having a silent conversation in Sign with Steph, but he didn’t care enough to open his eyes and look. When they had first met, it used to make Steph so mad that Tim and Cass were having ‘secret conversations’. She had poured over her dictionaries, learning as quickly as physically possible so she could keep up. Everything Steph had, she had worked hard for.

Steph was in college now. Premed. She wanted to be an ER doctor. Steph wasn’t a genius, she had to study hard. She wouldn’t be able to superhero in med school, so she was ready to hang up her cape for a few years until she achieved her dream. Steph said that she could do just as much good as a doctor as a superhero. She hadn’t always wanted it. When they were kids and Bruce used to ask her what she wanted to do when she grew up, in his awkward faux-dad way, she had always shrugged and said that she might be a nurse.

“Why not med school?” Bruce had suggested, between sleepy spoonfuls of oatmeal. She used to spend more nights at their place than at her own. Her mom hadn’t noticed.

Steph had just shrugged awkwardly, nibbling her whole-wheat organic toast that she would stare at suspiciously. Rich people, she would say, sighing. “I would never be able to afford it. And no way I’m smart enough.”

“You’re good enough,” Bruce said, which was the closest he ever came to praising somebody. “I’ll pay for it.”

Steph had gaped. Cass had eaten her Lucky Charms smugly. Tim had rolled his eyes. “An in-the-know doctor for the vigilante community would be invaluable,” he had informed her, pretentious and callous. “We could use you.”

“You deserve it,” Cass had signed.

“You have a bright future, Stephanie,” Bruce said, buckling under the panic of being a responsible adult. “I would hate to see you waste it.”

He would hate to see any of them waste their future. He had hated to see what Tim had become. He knew that. The last time he had ever seen Bruce, it was just to disappoint him. Bruce was the only parent he had ever had, and his standards were so sky high it was impossible to do anything other than disappoint.

The fact of the matter was this: he loved Cass and Steph more than he loved Bruce. He could hate Bruce. He could hate himself. But Cass and Steph…

Bruce had ear-marked a lot of money for Steph, both for whatever continuing education she chose and for her future. It had raised a lot of questions among the lawyer team, but ultimately she had been written off as another of his strays. Tim had left her a lot of money too. There probably wasn’t any point: when she married Cass she’d have equal access to the fortune. Rich people, Stephanie used to whisper in awe, looking at organic toast.

Cass was majoring in dance. She wanted to be a ballerina.

Tim’s future...Tim’s future…

“Or we can watch a nature documentary,” Steph said out loud. “If we all promise not to say a fucking word.”

Incredibly, unmistakably, irrevocably, Tim groaned. “Not the fucking bee one again.”

“I like the bees,” Cass said serenely.

“If you aren’t going to get out of my house can I at least smoke up?” Tim asked miserably.

“I brought gummy bears,” Steph said, chipper as ever, “which are way better.”

“I’m going to the fucking bathroom,” Tim grumbled, which everybody knew was as good as a yes.

“If you take anything I’ll know,” Cass said serenely, and also threatened.

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Steph and Cass high-fived, and Tim sulked angrily to the bathroom. He took a second to look at himself in the mirror - looking for Tim Drake, failing, as always - before opening it and grabbing his baggie of pills.

He looked at it. He looked at the toilet. He looked at the baggie.

He didn’t flush them. He put them back in the medicine cabinet. Tomorrow. He’ll do them tomorrow. Not today. He can hold out for 24 hours. It’ll be fine.

For a wild, stupid, insane second, Tim wondered if he could say that tomorrow too. If tomorrow he would look at them and say: maybe tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that…

If there was a future, for a fuck-up like him.

The faint strains of Cass’ stupid fucking bee documentary began playing through the thin walls of his shitty little apartment, and Tim turned out the lights of his bathroom and closed the door, locking it securely behind him.

#i write a lot of shit i don't post and i don't feel the need to post it a lot of the time #but sometimes im like. ah yeah that does exist maybe they'll care #my writing #tim drake #batman #batfam #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #do not FUCKING get met started on tim cass and steph im OBSESSED

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gingersprites · 4 years

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1, 15, & 20! :D

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

My current baby is running down to the riptide, which is a modern AU that started off as a fill for the July Theonsa Challenge prompt and spiralled out of control. I think I said at the start that it’d be about three chapters... now my guesstimate is more like ten. Oops? What I love most about it is getting to explore this completely different universe; this is the only modern AU I’ve written so far, and I love having the freedom to just write whatever the fuck I want without feeling bound by canon.

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Janie you know me, titles are the bane of my existence! Summaries are way easier, usually I can just snag a line or two and pop that bad boy in there, call it a day. Tags are pretty easy too, though sometimes I do quibble over whether I should tag something that might be kind of triggering or just make a note of it at the start of a chapter.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I’m absolutely obsessed with character parallels, especially when it comes to Theon and Sansa: their experiences as wards/hostages, their early naivete and the way they struggle when those ideals are crushed, their identity issues- I love it all! These exact parallels don’t quite apply to rd2trt because it’s a modern AU, so I’ve found new ways to play with this and adapt canon elements to fit this different world.

#ginny answers #janie tag #ask game #my fic #benhargrieves

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ashfae · 4 years

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23 and 24 for the meta asks? ❤️

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Thaaaaat would be the hydra story, which is my unfinished children’s fantasy adventure novel.First had the initial idea for it 20something years ago, gritted my teeth and wrote the first draft for NaNoWriMo in 2008 or something, and I’ve poked at it now and then ever since. I know what needs to be done for the second draft, which is pretty much rewriting the whole thing; I have it outlined and parts of it redone but really the whole thing (or at least from chapter three onwards) needs to be rewritten from the ground up.

And I should. It’s a good story, it deserves to be finished and I’ve had two agents look at parts of the outline and first three chapters and tell me they’d be interested to see more when I get a second draft done. Unfortunately it’s also a good story which I can’t stand because it’s been haunting me for twenty frikking years and really I just want to hide in fanficland which involves a lot less rewriting and more immediate gratification because I’m afraid of commitment. Something like that. (I hope that my Schroedinger’s ADD is part of this but am terrified really I just suck because I have NEVER finished any long term writing project EVER ALL MY LONG WIPs ARE UNFINISHED ALL OF THEM arrrghhh apparently every writer goes through this and you just have to force your way through it and I can’t/don’t and that’s why I don’t consider myself a ‘real’ writer despite knowing that descriptor is bullshit hi imposter syndrome)

So, yeah. Hydra story. Twenty years. I love and hate it and mostly feel guilty about it. It’s a pity. Kay and Nik and Tobin and especially Herman the hydra deserve better.

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Good lord yes. Dialogue used to be my weakest point and now it’s one of my strongest (mostly due to writing MUCH FANFIC thank you fanfic!), also I’ve regularly taken this one writing workshop by a terrific author (Janis MacKay, wrote the Magnus Fin series, lovely person) and she’s been amazing for teaching/reminding me...oh, a bunch of writing things. How to concentrate on sound and sight and smell instead of just seeing, how to show emotions subtly instead of just saying “So and so felt this”. I’ve taken many, many, many writing workshops but hers has been far and away the best at strengthening my skills. Really missing it this autumn. (so I signed up for an online “How to Write an Autobiography” type course for this month with her, mostly for the fun of it. Looking forward to that)

#ask meme answers #hydra novel

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prairiedust · 5 years

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The Folklore of Supernatural

Part two of a series I started with this post.

I’m reposting this as the second installment of my midseason hiatus “The Folklore of Supernatural” series, even though it was originally written as kind of a long cracky way of looking at the “sleeping beauty trilogy” of episodes in season 14 (The Scar, Mint Condition, and Nightmare Logic.) The original question I was tagged into was “Is Dean actually dreaming?” and I can not find the original post about this, so I won’t tag anyone in particular (you know who you are and I love you because this was fun to write.) I posted it once in the dead of night with no tags, but I’m republishing it as part of my larger take on folklore as a theme in season 14 of Supernatural. Bear in mind that this was written before Optimism, when it became clear that these were not part of an extended dream-sequence, BUT ALSO before The Spear when it was revealed that Michael could repossess Dean. (I’m going to talk a little bit about timing and writing meta, further on.)

I want to say a couple of things before the cut, too. This is a big old Sleeping Beauty post. I know there’s a lot of SB ideas out there in the metasphere but I’ve deliberately avoided them because I wanted to get my thoughts out here and I am Very Slow. Feel free to tag me into other posts, send me asks, whatever, because I think it’s fun to talk about. However, just because this is a “sleeping beauty” meta does not mean I want to go all the way to the end of that metaphor in this series. This particular post is general audience meta. I can’t tell anyone who might read this that no, you aren’t allowed to see a DeanCas parallel in a meta which relies heavily on a romantic fairy tale and one that was a destiel fandom in-joke after Cas died, at that. I will say, though, that I see it, so if you want to duck out now because I’m a lowkey shipper feel free. Also, I can’t endorse predictions based on meta, either, even my own, even when I think there is a big neon “Texan Star” sign saying “destiel goes here;” there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone involved in the show from making a hard left when the signs said we were going right. So rather than seeing this as a defense of DeanCas subtext, let’s call it an experiment in close reading. If nothing else, it will be fun. (Bear in mind that I am a massive dork so my definition of fun involves Charles Dickens.)

Aaand... here we go.

Is Dean asleep, and have the last three episodes (The Scar, Mint Condition, and Nightmare Logic) been a dream? How can we possibly “answer” that question at this point in the show?

We’re trying to speculate about a text that is a constantly moving target. If, for instance, you start to read the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and you know from a blurb on the back of the book that she was an anthropologist who collected African-American and Caribbean folklore, and you get to the place where the protagonist Janie’s second [redacted] ends, but there are a lot of pages left ahead of you, and you think, wow if this happens a third time, I have a theory that the third [redacted, go read this book] would be special based on what I know about folklore and the “rule of three,” well by the end of the book you will know whether or not you were right. Janie either finds a third [redacted], or she doesn’t, and it’s either special, or it’s not.

Supernatural has not ended, so there is no way of saying “Oh, the main theme we are supposed to take away from this show is ____.” I mean, we can put big money on “family” but still. With a television show, it’s hard to even say, “The over-arching themes in this season are____” until the season finale, because it is a text that is being written, filmed, and published serially. The fluid nature of subtext in serial literature was something I studied under a Brit Lit professor– she said, when we set out to read David Copperfield, that sometimes themes in Dickens concluded early or evolved late, or didn’t pan out, because Dickens changed his mind or was pressured by readers to maintain a character that he hadn’t planned to keep around (I think that character was Micawber but I can not find a shred of evidence anywhere, even in my notes from my Brit Lit class, because she kind of mentioned it in passing and I didn’t like Dickens very much when I was younger, so obviously I didn’t learn it well.) And even when you get to the end of a Dickens serial, you still might not get closure– he totally rewrote the conclusion of Great Expectations because his friends wanted angst with a happy(ish) ending.

But this particular “sleeping” symbolism that has been pointed out is really, really structurally sound and can be very well supported. What it means is (shrug emoji)

Going back to the first post in this series, the support for this reading comes from an understanding of folk tales. I’ll be primarily using European Sleeping Beauty stories, as that is what is most accessible to an American/Western audience. And, it was deliberately alluded to in the text of the show. But first let’s talk about formula tales in more depth because that is what sets this theme up in the very first episode of season 14.

Michael met with three different beings in the season opener Stranger in a Strange Land and asked each of them “What do you want?” This is in no uncertain terms a formula tale found in folklore all over the world, and you know about the rule of three even if you’ve never actually acknowledged it. In Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for instance, Goldilocks tries two bowls of porridge before finding one to her liking. She tries two chairs before settling on Baby Bear’s chair. She tries two beds before falling asleep in the one that was “just right.” There were three challenges, two of which failed and one that satisfied her. Goldilocks is an original work (and please read the Wikipedia article, it is fascinating how many revisions this story has gone through, and in fact “Goldilocks” wasn’t even the original main character) but it was based on a folk formula and has entered American oral tradition. Similarly, in the German folk tale The Three Little Pigs, the first pig’s house is destroyed because it was made of straw, the second house failed because it was made of sticks, but the third house was made of brick and withstood the huffing and puffing of the wolf. So the pattern in the rule of three is often two challenges that fail or are flawed and one that finally succeeds or satisfies the necessary conditions. For short, I’m going to call this grouping 2/1. In the Michael story, 2/1 is human, who fails, then angel, who fails, then monster, who Mikey likes. In addition, there is a primer to the rule of three in that first scene, just to make absolutely certain that the audience notices it-- Michael has Jamel guess his identity three times.

This 2/1 formula could be just something Dabb did because he wanted to do it. It’s ancient, and Michael is an ancient being. But. Can it also mean that “folktales” is a theme on the show now?

As the saying goes, “Once is an occurrence, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.” Folklore continues into the season in many different ways.

In Gods and Monsters, the scene where Dean shakes loose and punches the mirror probably lit up everyone who saw it with “mirror mirror on the wall” vibes, from the story of Snow White. The enchanted mirror is such a common “trope” in folklore that it has an index number that folklorists and others use to refer to it in their scholarship– it’s Aarne-Thompson index number D1163. So, another solid subtextual reference to folk tales. There is so much more in that episode about storytelling and retelling and the concept of sequels, but that’s for another discussion.

We get to The Scar and Jack mentions Sleeping Beauty and no lie I ascended for a full minute. “Sleeping Beauty” is Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk Tales number 410 because this is another story that is found freaking everywhere. (I have to make an aside about the use of the term “folk tale” just because it is in my nature not to leave things like this ambiguous– it isn’t completely certain that the Sleeping Beauty we know of Brothers Grimm and Disney fame is 100% for shore an oral tale, or at least isn’t a tale that got a little finessed when it was first written down. See, a guy in pre-Renaissance Naples named Giambattista Basile included a version of it in a collection of child’s tales hundreds of years ago (it’s horrifying btw, cw for non-con at the very least if you go looking for it) then Charles Perrault (of Puss in Boots fame) got hold of it and rewrote it in French, and folklorists are pretty certain that the story of “Briar Rose in the Forest” that the Grimm brothers collected was the Perrault story that had made its way back into oral tradition in Germany. And, like, it’s not a huge reach to say that the history of the Sleeping Beauty story that is explicitly mentioned in the show’s dialogue by Jack is more subtext about how stories are transmitted, how they are told, what happens when they get loose in the wild, etc. That’s how allusions work, and that’s coming up in my third post.)

So, three times means green light to consider “folk tales” an official thing this season, at least for a while. And the cherry on top is that Sleeping Beauty was the third story referenced. It’s neat.

But NOW. On to THE question the OP posed:

Have the last three episodes been Dean’s dream?

I’m going to pass up surface mentions of dream states and solely focus on the actual “sleepers” in these episodes in order to get at the allusion’s architecture.

In Nightmare Logic, the sleeping beauty OP has identified is Sasha’s father, who is locked in a dream-state by a djinn. In Mint Condition, the sleeping beauty is Stuart, who is in a mysterious coma-like sleep after an attack by a possessed chain-saw. In The Scar, Lora is in a sleep-adjacent death-state after being hexed by a witch. (I saw that her name on the iTunes subtitles is “Lora” which is a variation of Laura but spelled this way evokes “of lore” and that was pretty neat. Another tiny detail that bolsters the theme.)

Is Lora really a sleeping beauty, though, and why is that important?

Remember our rule of three pattern that we were given in the premiere– 2/1. Two people in this group will be more similar to each other than to the third. Both Stuart and Sasha’s father are alive, while Lora is technically all the way dead when she is in the sleep-like state. Superficially, Stuart and Sasha’s father are men, whereas Lora is a woman. Just throwing that out there. If I were writing this post for a grade, that right there is called “padding for word count.” But it is also a valid point, so we’re going to use it. Neither Stuart nor Sasha’s father are shown to resume consciousness by the end of their episodes– Stuart not at all, and Mr. Rawlings only stirs fitfully. Lora is revived when Jack breaks the spell. On the other hand, Stuart is never in continued danger in Mint Condition after his “touch and go” operation (he’s presumably safe inside the salt circle) and is expected to recover naturally, whereas both Mr. R and Lora will die/stay dead if the threat against them isn’t neutralized. Mr. Rawlings is similar to Lora because they are both under “medical care”– Mr.R is ostensibly in hospice and Lora is in the Bunker’s sick bay, and to top things off Stuart is the only one who was treated by an actual doctor: Mr. R‘s nurse was a djinn and Cas is not a doctor he just played one on TV.

The thing about close readings is that anything you can argue is probably valid, but one thesis might be better supported than another. I’m really really tired and there might be more differences and similarities that I am missing. But when you’re gathering the evidence to support a theory about a text, you can end up going a bridge too far and you’ll find yourself staring into the void, completely unable to make any progress, so at some point you just have to stake out your foundations and start digging. (Yeah, I mixed metaphors, I mixed three of them, it’s awesome, get off me.)

So. There is more evidence that Stuart and Mr. R are more similar to each other than either one is to Lora. If we apply the 2/1 template, Lora is the character who satisfies the parameter of being “odd man out.” That still might not make her a sleeping beauty for the purposes of answering the “Is this Dean’s dream” question, and here’s why.

(This is the speculation part. I love this stuff, but again I offer the caveat that using subtext to make plot predictions in Supernatural is like trying to write on a cloud with smoke. Anyway.)

If she’s the sleeping beauty, the subtextual message is that Dean might actually be dead (or might have to die to satisfy the condition that Michael is destroyed.) That possibility was brought up in both 14x01 and 14x02, before Dean came back. And eugh no one wants that. It also means that we had to have read these three episodes backwards to find the character that fits the template, because if Lora is a sleeping beauty, and if she is “the” sleeping beauty for subtextual purposes, she actually came first in the series, and you have to run the episodes backwards to get to the 1. That is subverting the trope. However, if you get the thing you want the first time why go on to the other two challenges? There is a lot in this season about calling back to earlier parts of the narrative to contextualize the present– for instance, in Gods and Monsters, Michael says to the werewolf, “You think you were picking me up in that bar?” or something to that effect and then revealed that he was, in fact, the one stalking her. In Mint Condition, we are introduced to the Janitor Victim as a Dean mirror, but we do not know for certain yet that Hatchet Man is a post-Azazel John Winchester mirror, so that scene is given greater meaning by information that is revealed later in the episode. Structurally speaking, it would be fair to say that the information we have now, that Lora the dead girl is “the” sleeping beauty, based on having seen the other two candidates, means a dead Dean reveal has been primed by the subtext. And like, no thank you?

The other possibility is that Lora, since she was dead and not unconscious, is not “the” sleeping beauty. The third “sleeping beauty” (IF there is one) would show up in 14x06 Optimism. (That title is really stressing me out.) Why would that be Dean and not some other random character? Because if we exclude Laura, the pattern resets from 1/2 to 2/1 beginning with Stuart. Stuart is a Castiel mirror, though, which is not quite right. Mr. R is a John mirror (although that episode is a lot murkier and I’ve said before if someone wants to say he’s a Dean mirror because of the djinn connection I’d agree, in which case BLAM we already have a winner.) [editor’s note, I only left Jack out because we already knew he was dying and thought this subtext was priming a twist, more at ten, this aside has been brought to you by the letters LOL.]

But then, where have the last three episodes come from? If he is dreaming, it could be one reason why the djinn couldn’t wring a nightmare out of him, and that the moment before he killed the monster with a bookend was his subconscious trying to signal to him that something is wrong…

I have said a couple of times that subtext isn’t always predictive. Some authors will have multiple subtexts or will use subtext to straight-up fool you (*waves to thriller writers.*) But the exception proves the rule here– we as readers/viewers rely on subtext to prepare us for what might be coming next. Subtext helps provide that slow build to climax that makes, say, Neville Longbottom’s absolutely stunning house cup win in The Sorcerer’s Stone such a stand-up-and-cheer moment, or that makes Harry Potter’s realization that it is his patronus, not his father’s, that saves his past self in the Prisoner of Azkaban so satisfying. Lack of subtext is the reason there is so much grumping over Mary/Bobby. I mean, they what? Had a walk in the woods together? She called him “old man” once, is that even a term of endearment??? [full disclosure I never liked those two together until after Nightmare Logic.]

And scene!

That up there is where I stopped, and now it’s clear that the person who all this was pointing at was Jack, who fell into a dramatic swoon at the end of Optimism. There were two “sleeping beauties” in that episode, too in the 2/1 pattern of the folktales we’ve discussed– the zombie, who is in sort of a dream state, and Charlie, who is knocked out by fly guy. (Again, fully dead is a red herring and doesn’t count. That’s some positive subtext.) That was basically a lot of words to be able to summarize that, yes, sleeping beauty and dreamstates is a thing so far, but where it was going was hard to predict.

There is something really important that can be taken out of this close reading, though, that is carrying throughout the season.

Jack was the character who actually said the words “Sleeping Beauty.” Jack sort of volunteered himself as tribute. Another theme this season that was made explicit by Subtext Primer aka Mint Condition is that the words characters are saying are more important than they ever have been.

AND ONE MORE THING! The above was written before Unhuman Nature and Byzantium and The Spear! Dean has been put back to bed by Michael! But but Castiel stepped into the Sleeping Beauty deal! Where are we going! There’s no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going…

Anyway in the next installment of this really long meta that will probably never end I want to explore what the history of the Amero-European Sleeping Beauty brings to bear on this season.

#the folklore of supernatural #the folkloristics of supernatural #season 14 #dabb era

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beccaboosthings · 6 years

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1-35 for the musical asks ❤️

Okay I warn you, I have only seen/listened to Deh, Bmc, Heathers, Newsies, Mean Girls, 21 chump street, The Last Five Years (dose that even count?) and a handful of team star kids musicals. I know I’m basically a fake theater fan. I promise I have been meaning to get into others. Don’t hate me haha. So I’m sorry if i don’t know how to answer some of these lol

1. Best cast recording to listen to during a long car trip

Mean Girls

2. Song you’d blast from the top of a skyscraper?

Either “You will be found” or “Disappear”

3. Song that never fails to make you cry?

“So Big/So Small”, “In the bedroom down the hall”, and “A little bit of light”

4. Off-Broadway or Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet?

Broadway? Idk haha

5. If you were to make a your own production of your favorite musical with complete creative rights, what would you change?

I would change how much stage time Connor Murphy had. I feel like hes a really complex character and i would have loved to see more cannon him. Even if it just was like how he really treats his family/the people around him.

6. Best song to break something while listening to?

“Good for you” or “Someone gets hurt (Reprise)

7. Hamilton or In the Heights?

I have no clue. In the Heights?

8. Top three Broadway actors or actresses?

Mike Faist, Barrett Wilbert Weed, Olivia Puckett

9. Hugh Jackman, Neil Patrick Harris, or James Corden as the host of the Tonys?

Neil Patrick Harris

10. Best musical theatre breakup song?

“I’d Rather be Me”

11. Stephen Sondheim or James Lapine?

Idk who they are (Don’t kill me lol)

12. Favorite romantic or platonic duo on Broadway?

Platonic Janis/Damian, Jack/Davey, Veronica/Martha, Michel/Jeremy. And for romantic Zoe/Evan, Cady/Arron

13. “Waving Through a Window” or “For Forever” from the cast album of Dear Evan Hansen?

“Waving Through a Window” Got me into DEH which I the started to get into other shows so i have to go with that

14. If you were to write a musical, which composer/writer would you like to team up with?

Pasek and Paul

15. What would you say if you met your Broadway fave?

If I met Mike Faist i would probably thank him for bringing such an important character and story to life. I relate to Connor in so many ways and deh has helped me through so so much. So just thank you.

16. Best musical theatre location? Orlanda, Santa Fe, Chicago, or the Emerald City?

Santa Fe. I wanna be a cowboy baby

17. Sally Bowles or Roxie Heart?

Once again I have no clue who they are sorry

18. Role you could play at this very moment and absolutely nail?

Veronica Sawyer. I know all of her lines in all of her songs. Or Racetrack Higgins. I know basically all of his lines. Although I can’t dance for shit so thats a problem

19. Movie stars on Broadway or Broadway stars in movies?

Both

20. What book, movie, or TV show do you think should be made into a musical?

Can we get a Queer Eye the Musical? I would pay good money to see the fab 5 singing and dancing for two hours. They would just critique the audience wile trying to sing and dance.

21. Tap dance breaks or 10-second costume changes?

10-second costume changes

22. Best Broadway Elder Price?

No clue

23. Best meta moment in a musical?

Idk

24. Top three women-driven musicals?

Mean Girls, Heathers… I have no clue for a third.

25. Are you more excited for Spongebob: The Musical or the Broadway adaption of Frozen?

Spongebob. I used to give it shit but after seeing them preform at the Tonys this year I was completely blown away. I’m sad i didn’t get to see it wile it was running.

26. Best young love song?

“Seventeen” or “What the Heck I Gotta Do” (It gets stuck in my head every time without fail)

27. Matilda or Groundhog Day?

Idk haha

28. Historical event that should be made into a musical?

I have no clue haha.

29. What non-Broadway singer/actor would you love to see in a Broadway show, and which role would you like them to play?

Dodie or Carrie Hope Fletcher as Zoe Murphy.

30. If you read fanfic, what’s your favorite fanfic about characters from musical theatre?

“Hair Dye” by @indigo-streaks-in-her-hair I reread it all the time and it was the first deh fanfic that i had read. Other then that anything i have ever rebloged on my side blog @becca-winchester26

31. Dream cast your favorite musical.

I have no clue. I feel like the Deh cast (Both OBC and not) and the Mean Girls cast are already all of my faves put together. Maybe a mix between the two

32. Set design or lighting design?

Set. I’m pretty sure if I’m ever going to end up on Broadway its in set design because i have no other real talents.

33. Favorite empowerment-themed Broadway song?

“Seize The Day’

34. Which Broadway star, from the past or present, would you love to have dinner with?

Mike Faist. Hmu fam ;) XD

35. Favorite musical theatre trope?

Idk haha

#ask becca #becca speaks

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nothing-personal-my-dear · 6 years

Text

Spartacus: Blood and Sand Rewatch - Episode 7: Great and Unfortunate Things

Sex Scene: 1

“Cock”: 5

“Cunt”: 1

“Kill Them All”: 0

Whip Cracks: 1

Slow motion Face Punch: 2

Episode Name Dropped by: – so close but no cigar.

Memorable Death: Pietros for obvious reasons….but also Gnaeus, that fucker deserved it.

Favourite Line: “Fate often takes the man far from his heart”

- Spartacus and Sura are super cute together

- I love how they constantly stop Spartacus from revealing his real name

- I wanna know if in Sura’s godly vision if she knew right from the start that she was going to die because of Spartacus???

- I get that he’s the champion and their all a brotherhood but like there is no way (at least historically speaking) that Sura was allowed to have such a grand funeral because of Spartacus….they were both still slaves.

- Gnaeus looking at Pietros NOOOOOOO

- Seriously cannot believe it’s been a year!!!!!!!!!

- Even fully knowing that Quintus and Lucretia are the “bad guys” you still like them and root for them. That is proof of good writing and quality characterization.

- Pietros all alone and so sad, gosh he is such a sad puppy. Too good for this world

- Oh yeah, detective Doctore

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…. I read some meta about how profound the slavery is that Pietros knew this was coming and didn’t fight it. He knows what Gnaeus is about to do and he wants no part in it but he doesn’t have the strength or the position to fight him. Poor poor baby Pietros =[

- Sure Spartacus, let’s play with a big ass piece of contraband with the door wide open, yeah no one will notice that.

- “What could they do to me that hasn’t already been done” – ouch

- I do feel weirdly bad for Lucretia, that she’s deluded herself into thinking her and Crixus are in love. It’s actually really sad …. If you forget about the whole slave/master rape thing….

- Pietros!!!!!!!!! Noooo your beautiful face, ahhhhh I hate this episode! =[

- Look at the Veteran fight!! Ha, I love this fandom, there’s a background gladiator that survives and we give him his own name, so great.

- Love the Oenomaus and Spartacus fight, soooooo good

- Ohhhh the first mention of crucifixion!!

- “Next time you seek escape you best kill me”

- Pietros baby =[

- I’m so glad at least some (even if it’s just Spartacus and Varro) of the gladiators see that what Gnaeus is doing to Pietros is wrong.

- Because Varro was a free man is that the only reason he gets to see Aurelia and Janis?

- “You are moved by a friend?” Yeah Aurelia knows what’s up! Haha

- Okay I don’t agree with Varro not believing that Aurelia was raped at all but I do understand how he must be feeling… I mean Aurelia could have started with the rape then mentioned the child, the way she phrased it made it sound like she’d found a lover. Oh god, do I sound like a horrible person?

- Ah, the statues, nothing but a head and a penis…..such an odd culture.

- Does Batiatus really not understand what he’s saying to Spartacus. This is like another form of enslavement, saying you must do this, but also saying you have no home. The more I watch this show the deeper all its meanings

- Ahhhh so close to the title drop, “great and wonderful things” damn you Batiatus.

- “Let us pluck blessing from misfortune”

- Oenomaus cock block

- GOATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s always goats!!! Seriously though, no matter who talks about the goats I can’t stop my Nagron feels.

- I love that Crixus knows his best friend well enough to know some shady shit is happening if Barca left his boyfriend behind.

- “I have awoken to a world of shit”- yet there is a beautiful woman caressing you… rightio.

- Ohh the patron thing again, ha!

- “I would rather fuck an eel” I love this show.

- I seriously wonder how much of S1 Ilithyia is an act

- Oh no, the birds!!! NOOOOOOOOO PIETROS!!

- “Boy has freed himself”

- I seriously love how angry Spartacus gets about it all, this is the Spartacus I like, the one who defends the weak

- Finally someone went over the cliff

- Oh the talk on worth between the different type of slaves hits really hard

- How guilty would Naevia be feeling right about now??

- I get that Crixus is all about the Brotherhood and being an honourable gladiator, but that was his best friends boyfriend….how does he not care about that??

- “The fear in your eyes betray the lie on your tongue”

- Love the awkwardness when Sura goes to lay her hand on Spartacus’ chest but he turns and kinda headbutts her

- I really don’t love this whole believing in the gods thing with Spartacus

- “Kiss my cheek only to finger my ass” I love this show and basically anything Batiatus says.

- I don’t hate Batiatus’ outfits this episode

- All the boobs

- Spartacus’ armour in the arena is very similar to what a lot of the rebels wear in S3

- That spear thing was pretty epic

- Right through the knee, mine twinges in sympathy

- This is the second time Spartacus had killed a man by shoving something sharp in his mouth … and it certainly won’t be the last.

- “I am Spartacus” (not the last time we hear those words)

- And the Thracian is metaphorically dead.

#spartacus #spartacus blood and sand #blood and sand #spartacus rewatch #rewatch #season 1 #episode 7 #1x07 #great and unfortunate things #varro #pietros #crixus #naevia #sura #batiatus #doctore #oenomaus #ashur

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creativinn · 5 years

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Part Video Game, Part Art Exhibition, and Entirely Mesmerizing

For nearly six years, Chala, India-based game developers Studio Oleomingus have been immersed in an act of digital translation. Their video game, dubbed Somewhere, is a multi-part first-person epic based on the works of the Gujarati poet Mir UmarHassan, whose work Oleomingus founders Dhruv Jani and Sushant Chakraborty say they have spent years transforming into surrealistic broadcasts from an alternate India, a place at once dreaming of alternative histories while unable to escape the all-consuming truth of the country’s colonial past. On September 20th, the work will be on display in the United States for the first time, at Chicago’s Video Game Arts Gallery. There’s only one catch: Mir UmarHassan and his stories don’t exist, and never have. They were invented by Jani as part of the project’s elaborate backstory, and in their meta-fictional haziness, they serve as a perfect lens into the fractured story that Somewhere is trying to tell.

In both narrative and structure, Somewhere is a work concerned with the limits of reality. Before he invented Mir UmarHassan, before he wrote the game’s recursive lore, even before he met Chakraborty, Jani conceived of the project that would become Somewhere during a course on museum and exhibition design in college. He had been grappling with the transition from design to reality when he began to explore the possibilities of digital architecture as a way to alleviate his frustrations.

“You reach a point in the design process where you actually have to start thinking about negotiating with the site and with people, with circumstances, with funds,” Jani said. “I decided that I didn't really want to build physical structures, and I started to sort of migrate toward virtual environments, looking at what happens to architecture when you digitize it, and can only interact with it in the virtual space.”

This was the first act of translation in a work that would come to be defined by that process. In 2014, Jani entered into a residency at Khoj, an arts incubator in Delhi, to focus on honing his digital skills with the development engine Unity. He connected with Chakraborty after seeking help on the Unity forums, and the two began collaborating on gameworlds, sending each other updates and designs while working from their respective homes, Jani in Delhi and Chakraborty in Bangalore.

It didn’t take long for Jani, who does all the writing, to start thinking about the kinds of stories that could be told in these spaces, especially as they relate to the historical exhibitions he had previously studied. Jani had always been interested in cultural histories—hence the interest in museum design—but it was during a stint spent collecting archaeological data at historical sites across India that he started to think critically about the ways that the country’s cultural histories were compressed into singular, often imperialist narratives.

“In studying local histories, you start to realize that a tremendous amount of their linguistic legacy and vernacular culture is not only being eroded, it is being forced out of national conversations,” Jani said. “And so there are these pockets of absurd history scattered throughout the country that simply do not align with the relatively linear national history that we study and are proud of.”

In creating a digital world unfettered by physics, Jani felt that it should also be free from the yoke of historical revisionism, a world where India’s multi-faceted past could manifest in all its contortions and contradictions. This was the ethos that drove Jani and Chakraborty to transform their disparate architectural exercises into the haunted post-colonial landscape of Somewhere.

"There are these pockets of absurd history scattered throughout the country that simply do not align with the relatively linear national history that we study and are proud of."

By 2016, the pair had moved to Chala to work together under the moniker Studio Oleomingus. They decided to unite their various game-worlds under one thematic umbrella, with the levels remaining individual experiences linked together with a deep lore. Beneath the game’s absurdist landscape of Escher-esque villages and floating tubes of toothpaste lies a story informed by mythology, history and fiction. It’s a purposefully fragmentary story, one that references historical figures both real and invented, and it’s mostly teased out in inscrutable text interludes that have the circular logic of a riddle.

Jani took cues from multiple literary traditions in crafting the story of Somewhere. His creation of UmarHassan was inspired by Borges’ recursive magical realism and post-colonial writers like Saadat Hasan Manto, while the game’s multiple conflicting viewpoints is drawn from the democratic storytelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana.

For the world design, he and Chakraborty looked to place Victorian textile patterns and Islamic art alongside massive everyday objects like toothpaste or briefcases that Jani calls the “dominant language of our current existence.” The goal was to create a world where the secular and the mystical live side by side and the player is never sure of any story they read.

Take, for example, the segment titled In the Pause Between the Ringing, where massive rotary phones are strewn throughout a traditional Indian village. They are described as ancient, natural objects akin to boulders, mined by real historical figures like Ashoka and Babur. In building a world whose history was amorphous, Jani felt that they could illustrate to players what colonialism feels like when it’s affected your home’s national memory.

“We see no reason for history to be honestly retold,” Jani said of the game’s mixing of fact and fiction. “We find that every time you associate veracity with history it starts to carry an unnatural amount of authority. Whose truth is that history trying to communicate? The moment you start to consume history with the realization that at least some of it is broken, nonsensical or ridiculous, it opens up.”

In this way, Somewhere is an almost maddeningly reflexive work. It’s a video game commenting on digital placeless-ness, a visual novel about the absurdity of narratives, an art exhibition that critiques the concept of exhibitions. The irony that a frustration with Westernized museum design inspired a project that is now displaying in Western museums is not lost on Jani.

“We have not figured out a way to mitigate this sudden truncation that happens when you put it into a museum,” he said. “It’s something we continue to struggle with. But also it creates room for subtle commentary on how we decide to posit the game and the fiction we create around it.”

“We see no reason for history to be honestly retold."

For the upcoming Chicago opening, he crafted a specially-tailored curatorial program that intersects the fictional history of UmarHassan with the very real history of the Chicago Fire and the city’s subsequent role as industrial hub.

Despite the porous boundaries that Oleomingus attempt to create with Somewhere, the realities of colonial relations persist. When the pair applied for a visa to attend their first U.S. show, they were declined, a fact that Jani said he found quite amusing. In the world of Somewhere, this will likely become another fact folded into the game’s deepening mythos, translated from reality to fiction and back again as part of Jani’s vision of an ever-expanding project.

“The idea at first was that we would work up to one narrative that encapsulates what we’re trying to do,” he said. “But every time you come to some idea of completion with a story, you realize it is foolish to think it complete. It will never be complete, and that is part of its purpose.”

This content was originally published here.

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janiedean · 1 year

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I'd like to ask your thoughts on a HOTD question... not trying to drag you into the Discourse Du Jour (god knows I could do without any discourse at all lol), just because you like Jace and the Starks and you can be trusted to have sensible opinions. Do you think Sara Snow really existed and/or will be featured in the show? Most of the fandom (or at least, most people I've seen discussing her) seem to think she didn't and she won't and it would be OOC for Jace otherwise but I'm not sure. When Martin makes his official histories go "oh but of course that theory's ridiculous, it totally didn't happen like that, let's not even consider it for a moment", it makes me think there's at least a grain of truth and it's more about important people dismissing facts that don't align with their vision or sources they think are too beneath them. Plus, the show has taken Mushroom's side on some things in season one, even without taking taking him literally on every detail. And a Targaryen prince hooking up with a "wolf girl" of Winterfell who just happens to be a bastard sounds like both a parallel to Rhaegar and Lyanna and, if the books do go there and it wasn't just made up for GOT, a genderbent version of Jon and Daneerys.

okay first of all sorry for replying so late as stated these weeks were busy af but in order:

premise: the way f&b is written the entire point is that you get the gist of what happened but everything you read is information filtered by one or more sources all of which are somehow biased one way or the other so let's just say that not counting what exactly happened that you know for sure happened you can't know how and you have to do some thinking about it/extrapolate and shit, which you can't do when reading face value which is what 90% of any fanbase in any fandom does this days alas but this stated

the consequence imvho is that generally you should... generally presume the truth is somewhere in the middle while seeing how your source is biased which I think is smth the show did fairly well (swear to got i'm watching the last two eps soon but anyway)

case in point if you read the book at face value al*cent was basically c*rsei except shallower bc obviously you can't get much in depth that way, but as again biased sources, the show extrapolated a much more (imvho) believable and sympathetic characterization without making her a saint or changing what she actually did in book canon/the way the story went and I say this as a 'I'm team black because I dislike most of the greens and anyway their claim was imvho bullshit' person so like I don't have many horses in this race

when Martin makes his official histories go "oh but of course that theory's ridiculous, it totally didn't happen like that, let's not even consider it for a moment" > you are imvho entirely correct in this assessment

with this said

'Do you think Sara Snow really existed and/or will be featured in the show?' the answer is yes to both but I don't think the marriage is actually gonna be a thing

first: if they got married no way that it wouldn't have a future repercussion in the sense that like.. when in og canon robb married jeynew in what seems like similar circumstances (because honestly i feel like this jace/sara thing would be more similar to that than jon/dany bc it implies breaking the betrothal to baela same as robb did with walder frey's daughter while jon and dany would break any betrothals should they get together) the entire realm knew three days later. if mushroom is the only one bringing up this marriage and gyldayn says it's doubtful she existed it means that there's no other source mentioning her or the marriage other than mushroom and it could absolutely be the opposite side trying to trash talk jace/the blacks spreading the rumor, but like if they actually did marry it would have been a known thing and like i don't see why - if it happened - cregan would have kept it hush hush since it meant like... his sister being married to the future crown heir?? that's kinda important?? but somehow that doesn't come up any time the northerners are discussed in the context of the dance? sounds sus

also: the pact of ice and fire (pact of ice and fire come on) is basically 'jace and cregan become friends because jace reminds cregan of his younger brother and cregan decides to pledge to him and jace promised his first daughter to be betrothed to cregan's son' which is like an entirely sensed alliance pact, but like... if jace was married to sara why the fuck would they need to do that since the alliance was already there? like it makes zero sense that if a marriage happened they'd need to sign a marriage pact for kids that at that point would be... sorta half-siblings

that said I doubt mushroom would just make her up out of wanting to diss jace so tbh I think the truth is that this sara does exist, is in the show and has a role in it but as they presented the whole thing until now jace forsaking the engagement with baela when it seems like they're taken with each other (and not betrothed at TWO AND FOUR like in the book) seems kinda ooc and there's no reason for him to do it the way it was with robb being distressed and wanting comfort (since at that point luke is already dead so....) so like I don't think the wedding is likely but I think she existed and that she'll be there and the fact that she existed is the reason why the wedding thing could happen, also because... like if she was cregan's bastard sister and married a future king I doubt northerners wouldn't mention it and it's not mentioned in other asoiaf books nor in any other stark-related role within universe sooo

also like the fact that gyldayn is absolutely xenophobic when he talks about sara most likely means that she exists and she's a pretty nice person

I also don't get why people would discourse savagely over this because like having her exist and them having a friendship or smth would be taking mushroom's side without going all the way and acknowledging gyldayn's while also not going all the way and as stated I think truth is in the middle here anyway like I think she existed but the marriage didn't

about the parallels... I see your point but not counting that lyanna was trueborn, I think the parallel is actually the pact not jace/sara, I mean, the pact of ice and fire is about starks and targs joining houses at some point (presumably following generation) which ofc doesn't happen because jace dies, but... if r+l=j which is a thing then it's stark/targs joining houses, and if the song of ice and fire is the song of tptwp........ well I've been saying for ages that this series is titled a song of jon snow whatever ppl think so like the pact is just predicting jon's existence imvho and that's the one parallel I see in this sense

wrt jon and dany honestly at this point I think they might hook up in main books but aren't an endgame ship bc idt martin wants to do targ restoration and as stated I've thought for ages that dany survives and goes back khaleesing in essos and jon becomes king long enough to fix stuff and separate the kingdoms and then goes off with the wildlings later so like as I don't think it's endgame I wouldn't go there but I see what you mean so if it's a thing it could be but I honestly don't think they're going there

tldr: yes she exists, yes she is in the show, no there's no marriage, both sources are biased against the northerners and they can choke on it xD

#anonymous #ask post #1 #3 #4 #5 #2 #the lizards show #ch: jace velaryon #janie writes meta #i guess #house of the dragons for ts #f&b spoilers for ts #fire & blood spoilers for ts

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petersthree · 2 years

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So while I’m loving all the firefam interactions with Ravi, my absolute favorite so far is the beautiful friendship between Hen and Ravi.

Hen reaches out to Ravi when she sees how he is with Buck - and we know why Buck is acting this way, Hen knows, but Ravi doesn’t. And while we don’t know quite what’s going on in his head, besides him saying he thought Buck was good but now he’s unsure, Hen must be thinking about when she started. About how they didn’t respect her and she didn’t know if it was the way they were, or because she’s Black, or a woman, or a lesbian, or all of the above (and no, it’s not outright stated for Ravi but I wouldn’t be surprised if he also had the thought, even briefly).

Hen makes sure that she goes to Ravi and lets him know why this is happening and that she’s there for him and that she thinks he’s worthy. She’s an advocate and support for him the way that she wanted and needed when she started.

And then this episode? When Ravi tells Hen about his past, and how he survived cancer? Hen gets it, she gets why he has this job now, because that was the same thing for her, because she almost died when she got shot as a teenager and that moment led her to the job she has now, and to become a doctor in the future. There’s this inherent understanding that the both of them have, and I think they also just both need a friend. Ravi is still getting to know everyone and Hen obviously talks to Chim but he’s not there physically. Add that to the fact that there must be so much that Hen sees in herself that’s also in Ravi, so the fact that they’re developing this friendship and Hen has taken Ravi under her wing so to speak is so so beautiful to see.

#i just!!!!! love they!!!!#there’s probably smth to be said about all the firefam members we’ve seen interacting with him seeing a part of themselves but #idk how to write that and this is specifically for Ravi and hen so ajskdd yknow #anyway I would sell my soul for this duo they’re so wonderful #hen wilson #ravi panikkar #911 fox #911 meta #janie overthinks media #911 spoilers #hen and ravi #brotp: I do

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strangenoquestion · 5 years

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Hope: you know sometimes you can be pretty awesome? Jamie: I know, right? I’m feeling all meta. Hope: why do i get the feeling you’re about to go all big head on me? Janie: What? Just because I’m the Dalai Lama of dating. Hope: omg. i knew it Janie: And have the answers to all of life’s mysteries. Hope: -_- Janie: I really should have my own advice column. Janie: Or maybe a podcast. Hope: i'm going now Janie: Wait! Janie: Write me a letter and tell me anything else that happens! Hope: i will Janie: You can address it to: Janie Birdsong, Relationship Guru Extraordinaire Hope: BYE Janie

Rachael Allen, A Taxonomy of Love

#Jamie Birdsong #Hope Birdsong #I got all my sisters and me #siblings #banter #Rachael Allen #Taxonomy of Love #books #quotes #YA fiction

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girlmeetsworld · 7 years

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Meet the Team!

These are the team members of the gmw network! We’re all really excited about this network and so happy that’s it’s taken off so well, and you’re all welcome to ask any of us anything at any time!

Esther, @bjllpotts

Hi everyone! My name is Esther, and I’m 17 years old and from England, UK. I love Isadora Smackle with all of my heart, and she means so much to me as I’m also autistic. I’m a Hufflepuff, thunderbird, and infp. I’m currently studying English literature and media at school, and I’m planning to go to university to study television production. I make gifsets, aesthetic edits, and fanfic, and I’m the one who started this network! I hope everyone has lots of fun here, and you’re all always welcome to ask me any questions you may have.

Jany, @winstonkipling

Hi amigos, I’m Jany, and I’m 17 years old. I’ve been a fan of GMW for about seven months now and I’ve been giffing GMW for 5 months! I don’t have any big future plans other than just cruisin’ thru life. My favorite character would be either Zay or Smackle (my children tbh) and my ships are smarkle, rilaya, rucas, & smiley. I make regular gifsets, aesthetic edits, & character posters. I’m also Cuban-American :^)

Maggie, @friarlucas

Greetings friends!! I’m Maggie, your local Lucas Friar stan. I’m 20, and while I call Virginia home I’m currently residing in Los Angeles to study screenwriting. I started watching Girl Meets World in 2016 (just in time for the season 3 premiere) and I have loved it ever since. My favorite character is obvi Lucas, and my top pairing is Rucas, but the clique six is what truly owns my heart and I’d die for any one of ‘em. I specialize in gifs, fic, and meta, and love to chat so feel free to stop by my lobby and say hi!

Kate, @rileysmatthews

Hello pals!! My name is Kate, the self proclaimed irl Riley Matthews. I’m twenty one and live in Maine in the United States. I’m currently in college studying education and someday hope to be a middle school social studies/history teacher. I am a more recent watcher of GMW and have been watching since about July of 2016, but have loved it ever since I started watching. My favorite character is Riley, she’s my favorite character ever and I love her so much, but I also really love Lucas, Zay and Smackle and my main ship is Rucas with a side of Zucas and Smarkle. I really love making gifs, but I also write fanfics and have been known to tangent about a headcanon or two. I love talking to people about this dumb lil show, so feel free to stop by my inbox and say hi if you ever feel like it! :)

#info

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daily-snitch · 7 years

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The Daily Snitch – Friday, July 21, 2017

Joanne K. Rowling – Life and Books: • VIDEOS: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone moving illustrated digital book out Sept. 5. • Bloomsbury releases cover art of Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibition companion book. (More info here) Harry Potter – Actors and Movies: • Dressing the Golden Trio: Us Magazine interviews costume designer Jany Temime. • Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) visited Universal Studio Hollywood's "Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts" Show. • Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter): (street-level) Superhero. • Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood): theater review "Disco Pigs". • HP movies cast round-up of the week. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: • New London cast reveals the magic of 'Cursed Child' in words and pictures. Pottermore News • The Ultimate Pottermore Quizzes Collection. Communities: • The Harry Potter 20th Anniversary Edition of firewhiskeyfic started tonight. • hp_drizzle posted the Fest Check-in, part 2. • hp_creatures posted the Claiming Post for the Halloween Creature Fest. • hd_erisedposted the Sign-up Forms for sign-ups of July 28. • snape_potter posted Join the Party! at the half-way point of the Harry Potter Birthday Party that ends July 31. • one_bad_man posted the Sign-up Post for the next week of reccing Lucius Malfoy and/or Severus Snape creations. Masterlists and Weekly Round-ups: • @wand-in-a-knot posted the Round Two: Masterlist of the Harry Potter 24 hours Porn Challenge. Fandom Recs: • rosevalleynb recced a Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley fic at the crack_broom (NC-17). • madeleone recced a Hermione Granger/Severus Snape fic (PG). • The Rec Center recced a Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson fic (PG). Discussion: • Holly wrote Did We Really Need a Map in the 20th-Anniversary “Philosopher’s Stone” Editions?. (MuggleNet) General Fandom News: • Comic-Con San Diego Panel: Fantastic Fans and where To Find Them: Rowling Along in 2017 (Sunday, July 23, 2 - 3 pm, room 6BCF) • MuggleNet Live! 2017: Nineteen Years Later – 15 Theme Park goals you can only complete at MuggleNet Live! • Harry Potter Home Décor Collection coming this fall. • Victoria reviews the Harry Potter nano metalfigs for MuggleNet. Nifty: • New Hogwarts House patches coming from Warner Bros this fall. Win a set at MuggleNet Give-away! or Win a set at the Leaky Cauldron Give-away! • daily_snitch is looking for your recs (fic, art, podfic, meta ...) for the Special Edition: Newt Scamander. Community Spotlight: ♥ firewhiskeyfic – Have a drink; write a masterpiece The community to safely practice writing under the influence. Challenges take place once every 3 to 4 months. Each challenge consists of about 5 prompts centered on a common theme. All entries are due within 48 hours from the start of the round. No betas are allowed; editing and proof-reading is discouraged. Once all entries have been submitted, there is a one week period to vote in several categories. firewhiskeyfic is based in the HP fandom but all fandoms are welcome. Both writers and artists are welcome to participate! Please send your fandom news to the Daily Snitch.

#daily snitch #hp news #hp fandom news #hp fanfic rec #pottermore

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whoinwhoville · 7 years

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Fanfic Author Profile

@chocolatequeennk, thank you for this template! What a great idea. I’ll be posting it on my blog, and linking to it as a permanent page.

Archives:

AO3 | Teaspoon (not currently posting new fic to Teaspoon)

Ships:

Doctor Who:

Ten x Rose | Tentoo x Rose | Nine x Rose | Eight x Rose, especially when Rose is dimension hopping.

I generally write Ten or TenToo x Rose rather than Nine x Rose, but only because I hear Ten in my head. I have a hard time writing Nine, but I DEARLY LOVE him with Rose. I read Nine x Rose.

TenInchFic:

Alec Hardy x Rose Tyler | Aiden Hoynes x Rose Tyler (under certain circumstances) | Jean-Francois Mercier x Rose (or Betty under certain circumstances.)

Rating:

All readers through E#pl1c!t (misspelled so icky blogs don’t find the word), though E is rarer for me. Generally I hover between Teen and Mature, with perhaps one scene in certain fics that might garner a high M or low E. There are a few exceptions.

DW ‘verse or AU:

Both.

Genres:

Action/adventure, romance, suspense, crack, humor (or attempts at it), AUs of all kinds, occasional period pieces.

Tropes:

Canon tropes: Downtime in the library. UST in the swimming pool. Breakfast in the galley. Chips, but not as often as most write them. If Rose ate chips as often as she eats them in fic, she’d have a premature coronary from clogged arteries. Rose wanders off. Jail happens a lot.

TenToo tropes:

Toaster fixing, jam, bananas, sexy specs, blue suit, brown suit gets tailored, but also jeans at Rose’s insistence, Janis Joplin coat (he has to really look for it, and ends up snatching it when no one is looking), Chucks, alias John Smith only when in disguise, although Lewis and Sarge happen too (also during sehksay times, which happen a lot.

AU tropes: coffee shops, libraries, book stores, universities, heiress, fairy tales, period pieces, WWII, spies, mutual pining.

Nopes:

Any romance between River and Ten or Nine or Eight... etc... I can’t change Big Finish canon, but I can ignore it and say she doesn’t travel back to meet other Doctors. Unpopular opinion: if her story and character had been written properly, I wouldn’t have been opposed to the Doctor finding love with her after Rose. Because see above -- Ten sending everything about himself through the Void into TenToo. Helps me cope with Eleven and beyond. To wrap my head around seasons 5+, it is the only way I can understand.

Rose with anyone other than the Doctor -- except under extremely carefully crafted circumstances. For example, I was very, very careful that it was 100% impossible for her to reunite with the Doctor when she fell in love with Alec Hardy in my ClosedVerse. No exception. Fobbed Ten as Alec is a good one, though.

Rose will never choose someone else over the Doctor. Ever. If she falls in love with someone in Pete’s World, and the Doctor makes his way back, she will never choose the other love over him. She will never choose anyone over TenToo, either.

Ten will never choose someone else over Rose.

Master x Doctor or any slashfic (just not my thing). I see them as best friends, or even like brothers way back when.

Prostitute Rose (I don’t read SDoaCG fic for that reason).

OT3

Jack x Rose

Master x Rose

Killing off TenToo to get her with Ten.

Kilgrave, Brendan, or now, Don Juan with Rose. Further, I won’t read “redemption” fic with this trio.

Cheating/adultery fic.

Babyfic:

Yep. I always tag. And I understand when people don’t want to read. I don’t think every story has to include this, but sometimes I do think it adds to the plot. Sorta fits well into FoundVerse, because of Jane’s character. I don’t think it always fits in a story, though.

Head canons that influence my writing:

Rose was altered when she joined with the TARDIS/Bad Wolf. Depending upon the story, this happens to varying degrees. If she regenerates, I won’t write her regenerating into a new person. Rose will always be the Rose that we are familiar with. I love her too much.

Rose will always the love the Doctor. However, I’m not big on either reading or writing pre-Eight x Rose. Mainly, that is because I’m not familiar enough. And I might have a bit of a squick when it comes to One, Two, Three, Four, Six, and Seven. Not because of how they look, either. No need to elaborate. No judgement. Just not for me.

The Moment was Bad Wolf -- saving the Doctors just like Rose and the TARDIS saved Nine. (Unpopular opinion -- i don’t hate the War Doctor, but that doesn’t mean I bought into the storyline. Seeing the Moment interact with him was quite amusing.)

GITF didn’t happen. I ignore it. It is a bad, bad dream. Maybe Mickey was dreaming it.

The Stone Rose happened. Ten calls Rose His Lucky Pants quite often, but in a flirty way. When TenToo comes around, her calls her His Lucky Pants, but not so innocently. {{wink wink}}

Regarding TenToo. When Ten regenerated into Eleven, his memories post-Journey’s End re-integrated with TenToo.

Dimension Hopping Rose. She jumped. A lot. She met many of the Doctors, and they all knew something was “up” with her, but I don’t necessarily think they figured it out. Since in my canon she isn’t bonded with the Doctor yet, they wouldn’t know they were together.

Sometimes TenToo doesn’t happen. The meta-crisis doesn’t always happen in my head. In canon, I think it made the most sense for the series, though.

TenToo is the Doctor. Period.

TenToo and Rose had a rough patch after BWB II. But they weren’t “estranged.” It just took them a while to catch their footing. But once they did, fireworks. Bam.

TenToo and Rose got married. In some stories, they have kids, in others they don’t.

TenToo successfully grew a TARDIS, but he still wanted to live a domestic life. While on Earth, the TARDIS disguises herself as a little, domestic cottage. No curtains or carpets. Shutters and hardwood. When traveling, the beloved blue box.

When either Nine, Ten, or Tentoo marry Rose, bonding happens. But so does a human wedding, because the Doctor wants to experience it all. Because the TARDIS is in her head, and because the Doctor is a touch-telepath, it happens.

TenToo and Tony are partners in crime.

TenToo and Jackie get along very well, except when they don’t.

Pete’s World Torchwood is a force for good, even if the Doctor has to advocate for that sometimes. Every institution gets off track from time-to-time. TenToo helps Torchwood as much as he can, but unofficially. Rose still works for Torchwood. TenToo might be an author, a teacher, or a professor between adventures.

I love Fobbed Ten. Love. Love. Love.

Ten and Rose were not intimate before they were separated at Doomsday. I can understand why people do have that head-canon, though. But not being physically intimate yet seems to make the tragedy of Doomsday that much more poignant for me. They were both, however, completely in love. They hadn’t voiced it, though. And they both knew the others’ feelings. The “Forever” scene sealed that for me.

Jimmy Stone was a jerk, but not abusive. I don’t think Rose would have put up with that.

Thoughts on other companions:

Donna, Martha, and Astrid were all stars. (Is Astrid a companion? She would have been great, I think. I didn’t know about JE when I watched VotD -- I’d kept myself spoiler free while watching on Netflix. I just wanted Ten to be happy.)

Amy and Rory are great together (no Amy pining over the Doctor). Clara and Danny in a healthy relationship would have been fantastic.

Other things of note:

Way back when, I wrote a significantly large TenToo x Rose series called the JazzVerse. Each story was named after a classic jazz work.

I named Tentoo. I... NAMED Ten...Too. Not a good move. I was very new to the fandom, and was one of the first fanfic.net writers to write significantly long TenToo fics. At one time, the JazzVerse fics were the most-read TenToo fics on fanfic.net. I really did like his name: Ian Noble Smith.

I didn’t know that naming the Doctor was a big, fat no-no, but I’ve chalked it up to ignorance. I don’t know if I’ll ever put the JazzVerse back up (for a lot of reasons -- I feel like the writing is pretty weak, for one).

Open for prompts?

But I can’t always guarantee that I will write them. {winkwink}

#author profile #i write fic #nine x rose #ten x rose #tentoo x rose

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