it's a useful thing

30 • they/them • my ao3 • dan is wrong about sunflowers and the color green

[rodentboysummer]

Starting a conspiracy theory that Hank Green was the celebrity who asked Dan and Phil for a threesome

[rpfbrainrot]

tweet

[pseudophan]

talking about phannie history and we havent even mentioned dans overly earnest semi-erotic horror vampire fiction about him and his confirned bachelor roommate that got published in a bestselling book marketed to 12-15 year olds

for sure up there with the funniest shit he's ever done because genuinely what the fuck. the way-too-accurate fanfic prose, the overwhelmingly earnest parts about his and phil's friendship, the ridiculous eroticism of that entire tree bit, the AMOUNT of time they spend with their noses touching... honestly he should have just gone all the way and written them as lovers because truly what is this girl

-- Phil grabbed Dan’s wrists and pinned him against the tree

oh i bet

-- (…) Phil, who, as if in slow motion, leant backwards, smacked the branch from Dan’s hand and grabbed him by the throat

of course he did

-- He tried to move but the force his friend was applying to his neck seemed immovable and impossible 

uh-huh

-- Phil stepped closer until their noses touched and looked Dan directly in the eyes: ‘I could kill you. Every fibre of my being is urging me to tilt your head back and bite your neck, but I can choose not to.’

okay. so cool dan

-- Phil moved in closer, pinning Dan’s body against the tree-

WE GET IT. actually. jesus christ.

..but then there's the :( you know :(

-- The next day was to be Phil’s funeral. Dan had no interest in going. His friendship with Phil was personal to him and not something he wanted to share with family and friends who would mean well but insult with every word of comfort. He decided that even if he had to attend physically, he would be somewhere else in his mind. He had to.

worst shit i've ever had to read.

[redrobin-detective]

I love when you find an author who just has a good flavor to their writing. It could be the way they handle characters, the way they use certain tropes or themes, even the specific lilt of their words. Its familiar and comforting and carries across different stories, like coming back to a place of comfort and recognizing the furniture.

[pseudophan]

always nice to have something to rely on

[pseudophan]

pov: the worst couple at the party proposition you for a threesome

[ttlmt]

RETURN OF THE KING

[thanksgiving-isnt-ur-fav-holiday]

the priest from fleabag looks different here

[ahappydnp]

waahhhhhh

no but i love hank!!! the way he and john both have been so supportive of this community since the beginning and have never belittled the passion (insanity) of the phandom. the fact that they've seen dnp grow up to stay grounded and humble despite the success and have always had lovely things to say about them. idk it's just so nice (especially since so many of us are also big fans of h&j) idk it's just so refreshing to see someone have kind things to say about this community without making us the butt of a joke

[lordstormageddidnt]

how many ao3 tabs do you have open right now

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-100

101-200

201-300

301-400

401-500

500+

Voting ended onAug 23, 2023

Inspired by a reddit post I saw lol. Any tab open on the ao3 website counts, not just fics

[mercy-misrule]

Just saw genuinely one of the silliest takes of all time

They said that you can tell when books are based off of fanfiction because they will be third person pov

In what fuckin universe could that be true

[mistigrisunshine]

thinking about that scene from seeing red and how it’s the worst thing you could do to a ship. like the literal worst thing. worse than one half of the ship dying. the one thing you can’t come back from. also arguably the worst thing you could do to a beloved character. that’s partly why decades later people are still angry about it, still feel betrayed. i think it’s a testament to how good a ship spuffy is, and how good a character spike is, that the love for them has prevailed, that it could survive this.

[messedupdoilies]

Yeah, and the thing that really gets me about it is that it.... just also doesn't really work for the role it's meant to play in the narrative? Even if we ignore everything problematic about the scene, at the end of the day, it just doesn't do a very good job of encapsulating the shortcomings of Spike having no soul. It's just a random Bad Thing he did and it doesn't really tie together what previous episodes made clear his problem was; his inability to understand why strangers matter, to understand that embracing your bad side isn't freeing when you have a conscience to contend with. If they wanted to make a case for Spike getting a soul, they should have centered on showing these shortcomings and how they are insurmountable boundaries in his relationship with Buffy. Spike is and has always been a character driven by love, it would have been enough.

So the idea that the scene is there for any artistic reason, to make the story work... I do not buy it one bit. Because I don't think it does make the story work, I think it actively hinders it. The mindset with which the scene was brought into existence is was a smug and petty "I told you so". It was meant to punish the audience, to make a "point" and prove something to them about how they were wrong about Spike. The writers have admitted this outright in quotes.

[mistigrisunshine]

fully agree with everything you’re saying here. they even planted the seeds in ‘dead things’, where buffy’s morals are really confronted with spike’s lack of a conscience (‘you can’t understand why this is killing me, can you?’ / ‘why don’t you explain it?’), but then failed to explore it further when it would have been the perfect build up to him getting the soul. such a shame

[messedupdoilies]

honestly, As You Were is a bad episode imo because it's overly concerned with making Riley look good but the idea it brings to the table--ie, Spike being indirectly involved in a demon scheme in an effort to make some money to support Buffy--was another good plot thread that highlighted the shortcomings of Spike's lack of a soul. Him trying to take care of Buffy through a way that indirectly harms many other people would have been a very good way of illustrating the limits of his morality in it's current form. They literally HAD THE BONES ALL READY for this story, executed in a thoughtful and satisfying way. And then they ignored it because it didn't hurt the audience the same way what they went with does. It's infuriating tbh.

[ginger--schnapps]

They utterly refused to follow through with SO MUCH Spike stuff in s6, purely because it didn't hit the drama quota.

His isolation is another big one. Spike in s6 is the most isolated he's ever been on the show. He's no longer involved in weird little adventures or hanging around the Scoobies at the Bronze. Even his friendship with Dawn has largely melted away. His life has shrunk to center entirely around his toxic affair with Buffy. Why is this never really addressed or given depth/weight?

He apparently becomes the ringleader of an underground demon smuggling ring offscreen. And it's literally never brought up again?!?!

He loses the home he's been building for two years. He took pride in his little crypt and how cozy he was making it. Everything gone in a split second because he tried to help Buffy in a stupid way.

And yes - this is the perfect bones for a solid story. Spike spends the entire season trying to help Buffy because he loves her, but fucks it up massively because he does not and can not understand how to help.

It results in him losing every single tiny thing he's gained since getting the chip. Including the affair he torched his life for. All because of his own actions, because there is a barrier that prevents him from knowing how to properly build and maintain good relationships with these people.

Just have him realize that the things he wants out of life are fundamentally unachievable without a soul. It was established in s5 that he can't go back to how things were before the chip. By the time Buffy leaves him, he's broken and desperate and doesn't know what to do. Bam, soul.

No need to traumatize your actors for a cheap shot at his fans.

I just really hate it when writers work backwards for stuff like this. "Oh, let's see what the worst thing everybody in this room has done and we'll just pick the worst one!" That's a very stupid way to build a pivotal scene for an established character.

As a result, despite this not being something Spike completely lacks the capacity to do, it comes across as jarring and out of character. Because there's very little build up, very little connection to what came before, very little motivation.

It comes across as more of a psychotic break than a big character moment.

[messedupdoilies]

The season's steadfast refusal to empathize with Spike and analyze his motivations for most of the season is the culprit, I think. I notice upon rewatches that Spike never really gets scenes to himself anymore in s6, despite getting tons in s5. He only ever appears as accessory to someone else's plotline, usually Buffy's... until he makes the decision to get the soul. And I think this is not just the wrong way to tell the story, I think it's a baffling writing decision. Because this is the season leading up to Spike, a soulless being with no functioning (or at least, an extremely limited) conscience and a vampiric affinity for mayhem and violence, willfully seeking out a conscience for himself. Within the world of the show, that isn't just huge, it's unthinkable.

And yet the writers seemed categorically uninterested in showing what leads someone like him to that. Instead, we the audience have to painstakingly patch it together through observing him on the fringes of Buffy's plotline because this MASSIVE AND WILDLY INTERESTING THING just isn't given the screentime or attention it needed. Riley gets an episode this season but not the current love interest to the main freaking character?

I have to assume it was because many of the writers believed it was a story that shouldn't be told at all because of their precious (yet incredibly vague and inconsistent) lore but........ I'm sorry guys, at this point, you have no choice. You can't have Spike stay the summer Buffy died and then not finish the redemption arc that is already in motion. If you're SO butthurt that parts of the audience thinks Spike is redeemable even without a soul, then make your damn case why he should have one!!! It was RIGHT THERE!!!!!!

I just don't understand why they wouldn't just tell the story they set up, it's so frustrating.

[shinelikethunder]

is it good? i could not answer that question with a gun to my head. does it make my brain vibrate like a hitachi magic wand at max power? UNFORTUNATELY FOR EVERYONE, YES

[lampgate]

has anyone posted this yet. best tweet ever written

[storybookprincess]

put your number (0-20) in the tags!!!!!! i think i got 14!!

anyone who comments that finding ways to enjoy the brief time we have on this bitch of an earth is cringey will be blocked ^_^ <3

[macbethheadband]

New favourite

[roseworth]

i blog for like 5 people and 3 of them are me

[theswisscheeserag]

I apparently commented this on someone’s fanfiction while almost unconscious and had no memory of this event until today, a week and a half later, when the author responded to that comment and I got the experience of reading my own writing for the first time. I, too, will be thinking about this for the rest of my life.