MarveyAngstQueen

Blackashbluephoenix on AO3/Fanfiction.net

[wooltobravetheseason]

remember how in the season 1 finale, harvey was 100% serious and 1000% pissed off that donna dared to go behind his back to sneak jessica the cameron dennis evidence and save him?

his exact words: “i have never once thought about firing you [until now]”

also his exact words: “what did you do? come clean, or i’ll let you go right now without a minute’s thought.”

his exact words, exhibit C: “you and i work because i know i can trust you. never go behind my back again.”

that no-nonsense delivery, donna’s quite limited role in s1, and the pre-existing fact of gabriel/sarah’s longstanding friendship, reeeeeally makes you (me) think about how in s1/s2, harvey/donna were almost certainly intended to go in a specific, Not Romantic direction butttttt the master plan ended up changing along the way, as mike and harvey kept behaving like an endgame couple, and donna became a fan favorite, and the Hetero Agenda started feeling the heat.

i compare the spirit, feel, tenor of dialogue, and narrative weight given to donna as The Only One Who Understands Harvey™️ from season 1 to season 3 to seasons 4-7, and…… it’s pretty jarring!!

and like. of course tv shows always have to evolve past their pilots and first seasons; of course showrunners and writers react to fans, rethink outlines, get each other on the same page as a creative ensemble; of course the whole joy of a long form procedural is to witness the characters change with age and experience and insight.

all i’m saying is— i get more than a whiff of top-down Gay Panic (derogatory) from how dramatically and specifically donna’s characterization changed over the seasons.

especially as, for both mike/rachel and harvey/donna, very persuasive and compelling arguments can be made for those ships succeeding as they did in canon only because mike/harvey mysteriously found themselves in situations where they couldn’t Be Together themselves.

and all the evidence is in plain text, not subtext, btw. see: mike getting together with rachel in the s2 finale because he thought he was all alone, had lost harvey forever, didn’t know where to turn. see also: harvey only making serious moves towards donna as a romantic option after mike left for seattle in s8. (remember that in s7, donna was the one making moves.) see finally: mike returning briefly in s9, and that being the trigger for harvey to decide he’d had enough of living without mike, marry donna at someone else’s wedding ceremony as a weird convenient afterthought, and then drag her with him to seattle in order to get the stink of queer yearning off the proceedings live happily ever after.

suits is. such a weird fucking show i swear to god.

me @ aaron korsch:

[legallyquestionable]

Harvey: Why does your apartment smell like smoke?

Mike: It’s not smoke.

Harvey : What is it then?

Mike: ....

Mike: An attempt.

Harvey: At what?

Mike: Cooking.

Harvey: You set something on fire, didn’t you?

Mike: Only briefly.

Harvey: ONLY-

Mike: Look, the pan shouldn’t have caught fire.

Harvey: What did you put in it??

Mike: ....

Mike: Cereal.

Harvey: THAT’S NOT HOW HEAT WORKS!!

[legallyquestionable]

Mike: You flirt with me like you’re negotiating a merger.

Harvey: And yet you keep signing the paperwork.

[legallyquestionable]

Harvey: I don’t get jealous.

Mike: Yesterday you called opposing counsel “that smug raccoon looking guy” because he laughed at my joke.

Harvey: He knew what he was doing.

[legallyquestionable]

Mike: Harvey acts cool under pressure, but one time I didn't text back for three hours and he almost sued Verizon.

[marveyangstqueen]

AO3 has a policy against untagged SA/rape fics for a reason wtf even is this? They even let you have the loophole "Author chose not to use archive tags". Hell you HAVE an archive tag and it's not the right one.

If a character says no, stop, slow down or something to that effect, and the other character continues, it's rape. Yes, even if they're a couple. The author clearly knows that, because the next chapter is an abuse reaction one where the abuser behaves like an abuser.

Not fucking cool dude.

[iris-main]

Suits is crazy because. Rachel. You do not want to be with him. You want to BE him. And Mike you do not want to be with Rachel. You want a port in the storm of Harvey.

[pace37]

i love when people just get it.

[marveyangstqueen]

It's actually really interesting how Mike and Rachel really just represent something for the other. Rachel desprately wants to be absolutely brilliant and have overcome struggles and diversity... when really she's incredibly spoiled and privileged. She's smart, but she's not Mike level brilliant. Her biggest adversary in life was that daddy may have wanted a boy and isn't great at connecting with her but still treated her like a princess and gave her everything she ever wanted. Yeah, she wanted to live on what she earned... which is not really hard when mommy and daddy paid for college and will bail her out if the need really arises. She throws all sorts of fits when Mike can't give her her dream wedding. And you can already see her getting unbelievably jealous of him in the show- with Harvey of all people, who she doesn't even really like. That's not going to go away when she becomes an attorney. She's always going to harbor some amount of jealousy for how well he does, especially if Harvey is involved in any way. She's constantly putting him down and throwing the secret back in his face, not because she's afraid, but because she is jealous.

And Mike is... at the end of the day, just incredibly lonely and desprate to have some stability and someone to start a family with. Rachel is pretty and smart. She admires him. They have a lot of physical chemistry, but apart from law, really have nothing in common. But he feels like someone that Mike should want if he were a real attorney, the perfect princess. And you can't tell me that he doesn't walk on egg shells around her sometimes. He doesn't trust her completely either- he's very afraid that she's going to out him if they end on bad terms, and to be honest, I think she's vindictive enough to do it, especially if it ends because Mike picked Harvey over her for the upteenth thousandth time. I think it's a big reason why he went back to her after she kissed Logan (that and Donna making Harvey do it). Getting engaged to Rachel always felt like Mike saying "Well I made this bed, better just lie in it because I won’t find anyone else who will put up with my secret."

The first time you watch season 5b, you're legitimately wondering if Rachel is going to cave the entire time. She's far and away the weakest link, the easiest to get to, she's already proven she can't stay loyal unless Mike is constantly by her side, and Mike knows it to the point where he panics every time Gibbs glances in her general direction. And she wants Harvey GONE, bad, no questions asked. I have no doubt that if she could have thought of a way to betray Harvey for Mike without Mike realizing it, she would have done it.

And then presumably because she's too good to show up to prison, Rachel does not visit Mike once. Meanwhile Harvey is there. Every. damn. Day.

And then he marries her primarily because he feels like he owes her for putting up with the whole thing.

Just... so many toxic layers to their relationship, even without the cheating and Mike constantly picking Harvey over her. They should have broken up in season 5b and been done with it, let her leave the show by running off to Stanford.

[iris-main]

Suits is crazy because. Rachel. You do not want to be with him. You want to BE him. And Mike you do not want to be with Rachel. You want a port in the storm of Harvey.

[pace37]

i love when people just get it.

[heartsuits]

[pace37]

i have so many feelings about this it makes me unwell.

[marveyangstqueen]

Something about Harvey (not Rachel) being the last face Harvey sees before he goes in, while he's in there and being the first face he sees when he gets to leave.

[heartsuits]

[just4vibez]

Harvey "I don't like it" Reginald "except it is my Micheal James Ross" Specter

[a-tangled-mermaid]

Sigh. At least I have this.

[autistichalsin]

Bad writing is great!!!!

Bad writing means you took the time to write something, you, a real human being. It means you created something! And you have the awareness to see that there's room for improvement, too!!!

Bad writing is wonderful!!! Bad writing is a platform from which you can build your masterpiece! Bad writing is the backbone of good writing!

Give yourself permission to write badly. No, actually- give yourself permission to write something TERRIBLE. Give yourself permission to write such drivel that you can barely read it.

Nothing comes out a masterpiece the first time!! You think Isaac Asimov never wrote a total stinker he had to rebuild from the ground up? You think Jules Verne never wrote utter slop for a first draft?

WRITE SOMETHING AWFUL!!! Write something so bad you cringe about it years later!!! And then when that's done, write some more!!!!!

[wwwdamerc]

He was most definitely gonna say marvey.

Gabriel ships it!

[downbadcryingonawhim]

Saw this take on the AO3 subreddit about someone who expects people in their writing server to always kudos and comment on each other's works, and they were annoyed that they weren't doing so. And that's well and good if that's what people want to do - there's nothing wrong with that - but do writers seriously want engagement from those who are only doing so out of obligation and not for the genuine love of their work? That feels forced and empty to me. That's more of a stance you'd want in a beta reader or editor rather than a reader. Don't you want someone to find your work organically and fall in love with it? Isn't that the whole fucking point?

[marveyangstqueen]

Honestly I think if a fic was good enough for you to finish, you should kudos it. That's about where I draw that line though. I stop reading and just hit back if I'm not enjoying a fic for some reason or another and I think that's how it should be. It's not even always an inditement of the writing itself- sometimes it's in a format I don't like or the narrative takes a turn that makes me lose interest or they add in a pairing or character I don't care for and I click away. Sometimes I come back later once more chapters are up. But sometimes it is just badly written or so Ooc that I can't continue. But I don't want to discourage people from writing at all, especially since they may turn to AI rather than trying to improve themselves, so I don't say anything.

[writingdose]

?????? people do this? 😭 ngl this is the first time I’ve heard about it and I don’t see how that can work. wdym you don’t read fics about your preferred character? wdym you just slap your preferred character’s name onto another character in people’s fics when their personality and characterization aren’t even the same????? I’m not even talking about how this may be a not-so-good thing to do to the respective writers even though they. won’t know if you don’t tell? but. why? isn’t it so much better to just read fics about your preferred character or, better yet, write it yourself?

[marveyangstqueen]

I used to do this when I was younger, probably middle school, primarily because I didn't have a ton of confidence in myself as a writer and the fandoms I was in were very small.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

another reminder that what you put in your public bookmarks on ao3 is public, meaning anybody can see them, including the authors.

all of this. heavy on “the fastest way to discourage fandom writers is by rating/assigning numerical value to fanfics”. also the “but don’t you want to get better?” argument is so exhausting to me. because if us fanfic writers want to “get better” at our hobbies, the things we do out of love, and if we want constructive criticism, we will either directly ask for it (so if we didn’t ask, keep your opinion to yourself) or we will go to our trusted friends, whose opinions we actually value, for their feedbacks.

because more often than not, the unsolicited constructive criticism random strangers give us isn’t even constructive criticism but what these people personally want to read. so here’s the thing, us fanfic writers write for ourselves first and foremost. we appreciate people who read our works and show us support, but we’re writing and sharing our works for free — it’s our hobby and passion, our source of comfort, something we do as a form of self care, it’s not a job we are paid to do — so we’re not writing to please anybody but ourselves.

you don’t go up to a stranger you see in public, tell them what you dislike about their clothes and how they can “dress better” then defend your actions by claiming you “have the rights to criticize their clothing because they are in public”.

if you like our fics, cool. if you don’t like them, that’s fine. you can find something else to read. or, better yet, you can WRITE THE THING YOU WANT TO READ YOURSELF, nobody is stopping you. but keep your unsolicited criticism to yourself if we didn’t ask for one.

[sncrlynwtms]

fandom etiquette as a whole died when people who didn’t grow up on fandoms became stans during lockdown, yes, but why am i seeing people openly mocking fics on twitter. why am i seeing screenshots of fics with captions like “bro what is this 😭.” why am i seeing people mock fic writers for not knowing how sports or theater or college or any other organization operates in the real world.

“college is absolutely nothing like this” “why are we writing four people on the team scoring a hat trick in one game” “so tech work is nothing like this, hope that helps!”

if you don’t like a fic, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough to enjoy a fic that exaggerates or ignores real-world orgs, you don’t have to read it. you don’t have to screenshot it and put it on blast for twitter. you don’t have to post a link to it in the replies. the back button is literally there on your phone. it’s not giving baby’s first fandom anymore, it’s giving entitled asshole and it isn’t as cute as you think it is.

[buddie-romance]

thank you ao3 for being an archive and not an algorithm. thank you for letting me like things without consequences, thank you for being free with no ads, thank you for having lawyers to defend our freedom of speech. thank you tag wranglers. thank you to all authors and thank you ao3