roma★
blake kathryn
we're not kids anymore.
if i look back, i am lost
⁂
Not today Justin
Sade Olutola
RMH
ellievsbear
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
hello vonnie
Today's Document
YOU ARE THE REASON
Monterey Bay Aquarium
styofa doing anything
★
trying on a metaphor
Jules of Nature
$LAYYYTER
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@mybearr
i need more people writing characters that you wouldnt expect to be parents being parents and being as weird as youd expect about it
'this character would never be a parent' under what circumstances WOULD they though
and what if the person closest to them had a child and died? and what if one unexpectedly fell into their life with no one else to take care of them? i didnt say i wanted to see them be a GOOD parent i just wanted to see them be A parent
one thing i do really love is how sex is such a big part of shane and ilya’s identities. like am i making sense. shane craves the emotional release of being dominated and the physical release of getting fucked and at some points he sort of flounders without it. like it’s a necessary thing for him to get that need satisfied. and ilya is pent up he’s wound tight he’s ready to go he’s in the starting blocks all the time. like his libido is high. and he’s bad with words so it’s easier for him to show affection and understanding through physical intimacy. and together they are the perfect match because shane starts to climb the walls if he doesn’t get fucked and ilya starts chewing the furniture if he doesn’t get to fuck somebody. i just really like the idea that shane who is so controlling and repressed and has a contentious relationship with his body at best actually desperately needs this specific thing. and he needs it to be sweaty and nasty and he needs to be pushed around and he needs to cry. and ilya has the same energy but the opposite. he needs it to be sweaty and nasty and he needs to push somebody around and make them cry. something really awesome about that to me. like for example they get in a stupid argument because shane’s wound up and needs catharsis but he’s being stubborn about it and ilya’s like this is stupid. i’m gonna fuck you and then it’ll be fine. you’ll forget why you’re mad after i make you come. take your pants off. and shane’s like you can’t just bend me over in order to get out of an argument! but obviously he lets ilya do it and then shane comes so hard he cries and afterwards he’s like oh ok you got me there. my bad. like he NEEDS it. do you know what i mean. it’s just really cool how sex & desire are so tightly woven into the fabric of shane’s character. and how essential it is that ilya is a perfect match for his needs. and vice versa. this shit is so awesome
Reading Bucky Barnes fan fictions like my life depends on it, part 2 (part 1 is here, and contains a lentil soup recipe) The first post was getting long so we have a new post now.
Another masterpiece: lilies with full hands. Another trauma recovery focused fic, where Bucky adopts a service dog, gets lots and lots of therapy, and learns what things like "consent" and "boundaries" are. Well, not what those things are, but that they apply in situations where others are touching him.
As with some of the other fics, this one portrays Bucky as a survivor of sexual violence, inflicted on him as part of his torture by Hydra, and delves deep into the feelings of self-blame and crushing shame he feels about all of the trauma he experienced, but especially the sexual assault. The way these feelings are shown in all their ugliness and complexity is hard-hitting and very powerful. It viscerally examines all the other traumas he went through as well: the whole nonconsensual human experimentation thing, getting his arm sawn off while he was awake, being forced to kill people, and being beaten and tortured in various other ways. As a whump enjoyer, I was Having A Good Time. We don't get, like, lengthy flashbacks, but there are some uhhh haunting details.
(except with the sexual assault stuff, which is more vague. Content warnings are provided nonetheless at the start of each chapter where this is discussed, though.)
I would say this was primarily fluffy, because most of the activities the characters are doing are things like bubble baths and game night and other chill and relaxing fun, but all of it is nonetheless a hell hole for Bucky because he is slamming back and forth from horrible flashbacks to humiliation and guilt to self-harm to being suicidal, and just when he is feeling better about one thing he's getting bodied by something else.
It is really, really hard for Bucky to accept that no part of what he went through was his fault. The most painful part is that after long enough of being brainwashed and tortured, he eventually stopped fighting back and just complied with his abusers' demands. It feels horrible that he ""let"" these things happen to him. But it wasn't his fault, even though he is physically super-strong and powerful and physically could have resisted.
A small spark of insight: no other character from the MCU or honestly from anything exudes such power and confidence in the way they move and inhabit their body as Bucky in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Everything about the character's physical presence on screen screams dominance, prowess and strength.
Therefore, it is compelling to write him as a rape survivor. If Bucky, a character who is pure power-fantasy-fuel, experienced sexual violence, then being a survivor of sexual violence doesn't define anyone or make anyone weak. The story evokes compassion for his feelings of humiliation, powerlessness, and self-blame, allowing the reader to explore these experiences along with him, to accept that he is not weak or at fault for what happened, and to feel that he deserves to get better.
Or at least that's my theory.
Can I just say something about these fics though? In every single one Steve decides he is Responsible For Fixing Everything and reacts VERY badly when realizing he triggered Bucky/otherwise fucked up, and goes on a whole internal I'm A Worthless Piece Of Garbage guilt pilgrimage, and at this point I just wanna fucking smack him hahah
Reading more fics today! But not any true standouts.
If anything remained of my emetophobia, I'm fully desensitized now. Bucky does so much puking in every single one of these. Poor guy.
Well here I am again for some reason. I got literally 3 hours of sleep last night because I was reading more Bucky fanfictions
read Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) last night which was recommended to me by somebody on here and ONCE AGAIN: y'all have EXCELLENT taste
This one just felt so...full. Alive. Vibrant. Every chapter comes with links to songs characters are listening to and/or references explaining the books and movies they're reading and watching. Bucky is Jewish, and it explores that, and Steve is portrayed as Catholic and a child of Irish immigrants, and it goes into like his relationship with saints and with the Gaelic language and it brings in so much depth.
Bucky is a heroin addict and living with a couple of teenage foster kids that had been living on the streets (who are SUCH good characters, my fucking god). Plenty of drug withdrawal type whump, if you're into that. Bucky portrayed as rape survivor, again, there's not anything graphic at all he just talks about it very blithely (and that scene, when it comes, came off as so authentic to me that it really exemplifies what I love about how this author handles these characters). Have I mentioned that the writing is gorgeous?
So I finished reading that one and then I read another fic, which I also finished. I shan't link it since the verdict is mixed. This one was really graphic about the rape backstory. Some other fics I've encountered exploring the "sexual violence" take on the torture/dehumanization Bucky went through were also graphic, but this is the first of those I actually finished. And I really ended up skimming the parts that described his flashbacks/nightmares, because they were super disturbing, but the way that the story "went there" was also really, really compelling.
Like, okay, I remember when I was a lot younger, I thought there was a "right" way to handle rape in a story and that was to Not Be Triggering and ideally not handle it at all? I was really uncomfortable with seeing authors "go there" and it was partly because I thought I should be uncomfortable, that it was right to be uncomfortable. Like, I love the Malazan series by Steven Erikson but there is a lot of rape in those books and I didn't like it!
But then I thought to myself, including that is being honest about war. And there are so many books that are NOT honest about war. And this is WHY Malazan is so fucking good, because it is honest about what war and empire really are and what they really mean, to the point that it's almost like...this existential agony that screams through the books, the excruciating awareness of the indescribable innocent suffering throughout history.
What was I doing, opening up a book that is ABOUT WAR and expecting to have a good time and not be triggered or upset? What did it say about me, and the culture I came from, that this was considered a reasonable expectation to have of a book where the plot overwhelmingly centers around a war?
And, okay so, I read the Iliad in middle school, right? And I hated it. Fucking loathed it. I hated the characters, they were all so arrogant and acted so wildly irrational, especially Achilles, who was a horrible fucking person. And the pages on pages of just...senseless, repetitive gore were so tiresome.
But that was the point. Because that's what war is and that's what war does to you.
And I tried rereading it again a couple years ago, and I quit halfway in, because it was just...so repetitive, and it seemed like neither side really wanted to fight, but they just went back and forth between trying to arrange a ceasefire and not arranging the ceasefire and it went on and on and on without going anywhere.
But that was also the point. Because that's what war is.
I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, I've gone way off track. War is, like, the most perennially bad thing that humans have created, and the stories we tell consistently fail to communicate how fucking bad it is. And it's the same way with torture. Torture is a real thing and in real life, sexual violence is a REALLY common part of torture. And in fiction, we treat it like...I don't even know, just abstractly causing temporary pain to someone. We put that shit in kids' movies.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Back to the fic.
The mixed verdict is because I feel like the sexual violence was focused on at the expense of the other trauma, and a lot of the things I care about, like the characterization of side characters, and the whump, and the cultural/historical context for Steve and Bucky, were just okay?
I fell asleep last night and had this beautiful dream where I was...still reading fanfiction, but it was in a magazine, and the characters were visiting a photographic art gallery. The photographs were actually part of the story and on the page, so the story was like spatially traveling through the gallery, and I woke up feeling so bouncy and energized because There Are So Many Cool Ways To Make Stories. I Can Do Anything. I Can Make Something Cool Like That.
Back to toiling in the fanfiction mines.
Fuck.
So much fanfiction, i cant hardly remember which is which, My brain busting its seams like an overstuffed pillow.
The man on the bridge by boopboop - Liked this one a lot, whole thing is from Tony Stark's POV, which i didnt expect to like but it was great. He's a snarky asshole by nature, a genuine friend by choice. Thor makes an appearance and I fucking love early MCU Thor- his earnestness and out-of-place regal demeanor is so great
Effects of Obliteration by geneticallydead - This one is comparatively short, but a real gem. We get both the asset!bucky dehumanization angst and Avengers slumber party fluff. Stings like hell of mid-2010's nostalgia. OUCH. Bucky orders a bunch of sex toys online, struggles with autocorrect, learns to eat food and ask for touch, tells the press he's gay, and wears band tshirts. Read if you wanna laugh, it's funny as fuck.
Hurts Like Hell by onymousann - finally, an acceptable amount of whump. Another fic where the mask is attached to Bucky's face and he can't remove it (I guess this is what "maskfic" tag refers to) and he thinks Steve is his Handler and refers to himself as "it." Overall goes really hard on the "living weapon conditioned to comply for fear of extreme punishments" thing.
There were two more that I read. I don't think I liked them exactly as much, but, they are all running together in my head now, and I don't know what's what! But as before. I don't want to outright name anything unless it's a wholehearted recommendation, because that seems rude.
Yes, I finally read This, You Protect by owlet. It's very good, but it's not fucked up enough for my tastes, which is purely a "my tastes" thing.
I read another fic that was SO GOOD that it KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF and then TENDERLY PUT MY SOCKS BACK ON
It's Prisoner One by ancientreader and I don't know what to do but scream about it. I spent all day reading this fic savoring every single word and I didn't want it to end. It's gorgeously written, it's heartwarming, with some moments of genuine pure horror that made my stomach fall out.
And Every Chapter has these intricate, thoughtful historical and cultural notes with links to poems, historical photography, songs, and paintings that are important to the characters or otherwise important in the story.
By far my favorite characterization of Steve yet. If you want a fic that REALLY delves in deep with Steve's survivors guilt and savior complex this is the one.
It is so fucking good, nothing i say could do it justice.
there must have been a moment when we could have said no by magdaliny
I actually started this one about a couple months ago, quit early on, and now decided to start over from the beginning. (switching back and forth between present and past annoys the hell out of me in books, and there was a lot of that in the first couple chapters. But then it goes away.)
This one is heavy. It made my heart ache. LOTS of whump if you're into that (I am). If you like vivisection scenes, you're in luck. And also very thoughtful and nuanced disability rep. In a lot of fics, Bucky is still a badass killing machine, but in this one, Bucky amputates his own metal arm and spends most of the story navigating life as an amputee. He also can't eat solid food so he has a feeding tube implanted. It feels so realistic, whenever he's moving around or lying down he's having to think about his tube getting bent or kinked, and he's learning how to do things with one hand and compensate for the sudden lack of balance, it made the story feel very grounded in what his body would be like. Bucky has a lot of internalized ableism at the beginning which is also interesting to see.
This story wrestles a lot with the conflict of Steve wanting his dead friend back and Bucky feeling suffocated by the expectation that he's supposed to be this dead guy that feels, at best, like a ghost that clings to his body in confusing scraps. It deals a lot with grief. And it is a really good character sketch of Steve that lets him be a complicated and nuanced character that is fucked up with his guilt and self blame, but also not completely a little bitch about it.
There are so many original side characters that are so, so good I want to read more stories about them. Clint shows up in this one, and he's much more like comics!clint and really fun.
This one was light on the "romance," it is more about Steve and Bucky's friendship and Bucky's relationships with many other characters. Also Bucky hasn't any libido or interest in sex because of all the drugs Hydra injected him with, though he does enjoy kissing and snuggling.
definitely worth a read if you liked Ain't No Grave as it is similar
Ready to Comply by exclamation
Okay so I read this one about a week ago, and it is pretty angsty and heavy on the asset!bucky dehumanization, complete with the it/its pronouns, but it also made me SCREAM laughing. Bucky is given unrestricted internet access and mishaps occur. It's a very good example of the angst/fluff/silliness combo that some fics pull off so well, like complementary sweet and savory flavors, and Bucky's progress of healing is SO SLOW and SO DIFFICULT that it is very satisfying. If you liked Effects of Obliteration you'll enjoy the hell out of this.
The Waves Above Us by lobst_r
A landscape illuminated by pain. Every character is such a vividly rendered barbed-wire thicket of conflict and suffering. This fic focuses more strongly on Steve than Bucky, and has major topics of bodily autonomy and suicide: Steve, after coming out of the ice, wants to kill himself, and SHIELD and the serum will not let him.
We all know that Bucky was dehumanized and used, turned into a weapon and an embodiment of a despicable ideology, but the same thing happened to Steve. The disabled, immigrant, weak, queer and socialist Steve Rogers was slain, and Captain America was born, an icon of nationalism, with everything about him the Eugenicists would have despised, erased and destroyed. He wakes up in the 21st century, and his government still wants to puppet him around while crushing the weak, addicted, immigrant, sick, non-white, queer, and disillusioned.
This fic engages with the ideology of Eugenics and how it influenced the experiments that created Captain America. It has a fantastic characterization of Sam, exploring how he was forced to erase and reduce his Blackness to be taken seriously and not be seen as threatening.
A really fantastic example of a fic that actually confronts all the questions raised by the source material that the canon was too cowardly to answer.
im very bored so im going through some of my posts from the last month
might reread a couple of these. why not?
Fanfiction exists for TWO reasons:
Dealing with complex thoughts and emotions I can't work through in therapy, like grief, despair, a complicated relationship with pain and addiction
Seeing the same characters fuck over amd over again
planning my fic in a normal way. 1) what incredibly indulgent scene do I want to write next? 2) what connective tissue do I have to set up between indulgent scenes to get us there?
Hi,
Is there a way to filter out fics you've already read? Or at least already read in that computer? I have a very specific way to filter fics that works very well for me, but that also means that on fandoms where I have been reading for a whle, I have to wade throgh pages and pages where I've read almost every fic already... It makes finding new ones pretty cumbersome.
Thank you for all your help!!
I'm not aware of a way to filter them, but you can add an indicator that you've already read/seen a work by using a userscript.
Userscripts are a kind of extension for your brower. Desktop browsers all allow them, but on mobile devices Firefox is the only browser I know that lets you apply them. (If anyone knows of other mobile browsers that allow userscripts, please share in the notes!)
There are two possibilities that I can suggest, and perhaps there are more out there that I haven't heard of.
1. Kudos and Seen History - this was coded by Min, the same person who created the Google Docs script that automatically adds the html formatting for you.
1a. C89sd coded an addition/replacement for that userscript called KHX that also has a light and dark toggle to work with site skins that are either light or dark mode.
2. AO3 Browsing Notes is another possible option. This userscript lets you save notes on works that you can see while you're browsing or searching. Your notes show up underneath the summary box, so they're easy to see and connect to the fic.
Unfortunately, none of those options remove the works from your browsing list. But perhaps someone has a suggestion for something that will?
I don't know any way to automatically remove works you've already read, but I would suggest making a site skin dedicated to hiding works you've already read. (I say make it its own instead of lumping it together with other skins, that way you can easily turn it off if you want to visit a specific fic.)
So you would copy the number at the end of the work's URL, then replace [Work ID] in the following code with it:
.work-[Work ID] {
display: none !important;
}
And then you could write //Work Name and Author// above or below the text in the CSS box so you could know which is which.
And then you could make it Parent Only using the advanced options and add it as a parent onto whatever other skins you're using.
Automatically hiding any you've read would also hide wips where you've read some but there are new chapters.
The default search sorts by date last posted. When I'm first binging a new fandom/tag, I'll go deep into a search, saving where I am between looks. Once I'm more caught up or not binging, I'll just look at the more currently updated fics.
The scripts to more easily mark ones you've opened could be helpful.
hi! do you have any fic recs for the aftg fandom? ideally AUs but where the characters aren’t ooc
Anon you have no idea what kind of blank check you’ve given me with this ask 😂. For the sake of my own sanity I have limited myself to only listing 10 fic recs but please know that there are literally 100s of fics I could rec within these parameters 😂.
Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell
This has evolved to one of fanfiction’s major assets in my eyes. To every author that cares enough about the characters in their stories to examine trauma, but also the slow, tedious processes of healing and recovery: your stories mean so much to me and other persons with mental health problems. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Society: We don’t talk about how anger is Often just masking grief
A 17 year old with a blorbo and a laptop: Don’t mind if I do tho
My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.
Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?
What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?
Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.
people are saying everything is a love language nowadays. and they right. love is in everything u fucking geniuses
Sorry I'm late, I got added to the Wild Hunt last night and ran and reveled with them for what felt like 100 years plus a day until I landed the killing blow on a stag with bronze antlers then suddenly woke in my bed, willow leaves in my hair, a nameless song echoing in my ears, and my hands still bloody, so yeah, totally missed my alarm and stuff.
"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious
calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.
Dandelions have a symbiotic relationship with little kids who make wishes
this is... not entirely false, actually
alternatives to "ladies and gentlemen"
cads and wastrels
fellow scoundrels
ladies, gentlemen, and interesting miscellanea
beloved friends & tolerated acquaintances
entities of interest
paying audience members & assorted freeloaders
the fbi's most and least wanted
discerning guests & those of you with fuck all else to do on a tuesday evening
esteemed gutter filth
You know what I think its grossly under-rated in fandom? Second loves.
What it's like to love and lose and then love again. To suffer through either the death of a loved one or the death of a love you used to share. To know that loss, to know that hurt, and to still make yourself vulnerable to someone again. To love scared, to love wounded, to love anyway.
By under rated in fandom I mean so often past loves are either erased completely or downplayed like "oh yeah they weren't really in love.". I think it flattens the character. Humans are capable of so much love. Each relationship is different and you can learn from each one! And yes, there's something brave in learning to love again, something incredible romantic, why pass it by?
one of my favorite things to do in limited perspective is write sentences about the things someone doesn't do. he doesn't open his eyes. he doesn't reach out. i LOVE sentences like that. if it's describing the narrator, it's a reflection of their desires, something they're holding themselves back from. there's a tension between urge and action. it makes you ask why they wanted or felt compelled to do that, and also why they ultimately didn't. and if it's describing someone else, it tells you about the narrator's expectations. how they perceive that other person or their relationship. what they thought the other person was going to do, or thought the other person should have done, but failed to. negative action sentences are everything.
