tons of fandoms - teen wolf is my current love and star wars is my oldest/longest-running fave
ao3: RangerLexi
original posts: #lexi originals
I mod a Discord server for queer writers (tho all are welcome!)
Scott McCall defender forever. i WILL talk about him at the slightest provocation.
last but not least, STRONGLY anti-genAI. everything i say is my own words.
Fics
Star Wolves (Star Wars Fusion AU) - series
Scott is a Jedi youngling during the fall of the Republic, who narrowly escapes Order 66 and finds himself adopted into a new family.
after the beast - Mason & Scott & Stiles - 3915 words
Post 5b, Mason's friends are very worried about him.
love's to blame - Scott & the Pack - 4974 words
5 times Scott showed his pack that he loves them, and 1 time they returned the favor.
tendrils - Scott & a few ppl - 7058 words
Post 3b, Scott experiences some Consequences to taking people's pain all the time.
More under the cut:
apologies - Scott & Stiles (& Melissa) - 4343 words
Post-canon, Scott gets poisoned in a fight.
see you again - Kira & OC - 9109 words
Post 3b, an old friend of Kira's surprises her with a visit.
graves - Malia & Henry - 1100 words
5b, Malia visits her family's graves for the first time.
in the blood - Kate & Chris - 1869 words
Pre-canon, the Argent siblings discuss guns, werewolves, and what it means to be an Argent.
spotlight - Scott/Kira - 3591 words
The Scira theatre kid au we all deserve.
hemicorporectomy - 1651 words
After 2x01: Omega.
small mercies, or something like that - 1635 words
Kate Argent is a bitch, and Scott is having a bad time.
The Alpha Werewolf's Guide... - Scott & Liam - 1998 words
A series of moments from Scott and Liam's respective first weeks as werewolves.
letter - Deaton & Scott - 533 words
Scott gets his decision letter from UC Davis.
belief - Deaton & Scott - 1010 words
Season 1 Deaton (and a little Scott) character study.
you can't take pain if you don't care. - Liam/Theo - 1018 words
Post-canon, Theo still can't get the pain taking thing down.
weight - Liam & Stiles - 1603 words
Between 6a+b, Liam overhears something he isn't supposed to and it confirms all of his insecurities.
32 - Scott & Stiles - 1959 words
Alt 3b (loosely), It's the 32nd iteration of the time loop and Scott is really fucking tired.
nightmare - Scott & Stiles - 917 words
Post 3b, Stiles wakes up from a nightmare in Scott's room.
Star Wolves fics in recommended reading order
crash - 2710 words - 18 BBY
Former Jedi youngling and Order 66 survivor Scott is rescued and taken in by Stiles and his family.
falling - 2541 words - 19 BBY/14 BBY
Order 66, and the fallout for Scott.
Not Teen Wolf
weakness - White Collar - Neal & Peter - 2463 words
Neal wakes up in a dark cell and quickly realizes just how much trouble he's in.
DangerLexi - my pseud for Henry Danger/Danger Force fics (goes with my sideblog @dangerlexi)
If you play Flight Rising, you should friend me :) I go on there so rarely nowadays but I'll throw research notes your way every so often!
header: set from The Tempest which I helped light, and I built the orange-y box
pfp: his name is hedgie <3 no idea where i got the image it has been at least a decade. any edits for ~flair~ are mine i like making him themed :)
user: it's a ranger's apprentice ref. if you're wondering
title: Jedi mantra from The High Republic novels
scott pov of his own childhood is always devastating but right now I'm really stuck on scott seeing his dad spiral deeper into alcoholism and becoming more overtly physically and emotionally abusive vs seeing stiles' dad spiral deeper into alcoholism but then actually dig himself out of it like how would you as a child even deal with that. how would scott as a baby who already has poor self worth and a fuckton of abandonment issues due to the aforementioned abuse understand that his dad just didnt try to be better and would he blame himself for it. maybe scott's dad really is a different type of person or maybe scott wasn't 'worth' changing for.
Last Song: i don't know but i have Fable by Gigi Perez stuck in my head (which is weird bc it's not one i usually listen to)
Currently Watching: i have one episode and the movie left in Heartstopper, and i'm still rewatching Miraculous
Currently Reading: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
Current Obsession: Miraculous
Currently Working On: well. "currently" is a strong word but my most recently-worked-on wip is a Miraculous fic
Currently Wearing: pjs!
Last Google Search: lol it was "fable gigi perez" because i couldn't remember the name of the artist. before that it was "ryan gosling" bc someone vagueposted smthn about him and i was like oh god what happened
Favourite Flower: hmmm dandelions? (tiktok sound voice: that's such a basic bitch answer-) alright you want a real answer? it's the tiny little white flowers that pop up on my spider plants before the baby ones sprout. they give me so much joy
You might have noticed that when you include more than one item in your AO3 filters, the number of results drops drastically. When you include more than one item, you're telling the filter to find fics that have tag A as well as tag B, and the more items you include, the more things you're requiring a fic to have in order to show up in your results.
You're telling AO3 that you only want fics that have all of the things. You're not telling AO3 that you want fics that have any of the things.
This is because the filters use something called Boolean operators. The Boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT. You need to use caps for these terms in order for them to function as an operator and not just another word in a phrase.
AND (the one used by include filters) means you want both (or all) of the things
OR means you want any of them or any combination of them
NOT (the one used by exclude filters) means that you want none of them, either alone or in combination
So if Include = AND and Exclude = NOT, then how do you use OR? Use the Search Within Results box. It's near the bottom of the filter menu, right above where you can choose which language you want to read and below where you can choose word count range and completion status etc.
In this box, type the name of the first tag you're interested in, then the name of the second tag and put an OR in the middle. Keep adding OR in between them, and you can stack as many tags as you want - until you get to whatever the character limit is (character, in this case, meaning letter, number, or symbol).
If a tag is just one word, then your filter would look like this:
angst OR fluff
If a tag is more than one word, then your filter would look like this:
"no beta we die like men" OR "I wrote this instead of sleeping"
You need the quotation marks around multiple words to let the filter know that those words belong together, in that order
If you want to do an OR search for ships, it gets a bit more complicated because of the symbols used in ship tags. For ships, instead of using the name of the tag, it's better to use the tag ID number.
To find the tag ID, tap/click on the ship tag to go that tag's results page (I'm using Frodo/Sam in this example). On that results page, tap on the button labelled RSS feed. That will either open up a new page full of code or download a text file of code. Near the top of that code, you'll see something that looks like:
The tag ID number is the number that appears after /tags/
In this case, the tag ID number for Frodo/Sam is 13674. When I repeat the same process for Frodo & Sam, I get the tag ID number 716913. Then I just need to set up my OR statement and let it know that the tag number I'm providing is a relationship ID:
relationship_ids: 13674 OR relationship_ids:716913
Put that in the Search Within Results box, and I'll get fics with either one of those ships tagged, and I'll also get results with both ships tagged.
Oh! and if you don't know how to find the filters menu, just tap on any tag and then on the button labelled Filters. You won't see this menu on a search results page. However, you can use these same techniques in the search bar at the top of the page or in the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced search page.
Instead of quotation marks you could also use brackets and instead of NOT you can you a dash. (Boolean Operators have alternative characters/symbols that can be used instead of typing the entire operator but this also depends on where you are typing them. If you type them on a site that doesn't recognize the character/symbol, you might not get the results for what you want.)
For example, if you're searching for Frodo & Sam OR Frodo/Sam but you don't even want a mention of Bilbo, you can write it like this:
(Frodo & Sam) OR (Frodo/Sam) -Bilbo
It will filter out every work that has Bilbo anywhere in the tags (and summary, title, series titles, and if the author's name contains it😅) while giving you the works that you want. It doesn't work for partial words however (I think you would have to use an asterisk (*) which is sometimes called a wildcard, but I haven't tried that yet, I'll update if I do), i.e. poly vs polyamory.
Note that when using the dash there mustn't be a space between it and what you want to filter out, or else you will get a page with zero results (I think it ends up filtering out every work with a space, and that's all works).
Dashes can also be used with brackets, for example: -(character death)
This will filter out Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Canon Character Death, and so on so forth.
I'm lazy to type to much while on my phone but if you need to know more I'm more than willing to help!
a thing about me is i basically never notice a wig or other kind of hairpiece in tv/movies. it has to be party city territory for me to even twig it. people will complain about characters' wigs looking bad and i will nod along but there is like a 90% chance i did not notice for a second while watching. i consider this mostly a blessing.
This interview with Ncuti Gatwa crossed my dash again, and I was reminded of how much I like it. Because it makes the rare Third Argument for representation in fiction, the argument I think is the best, and I'm always happy to see it. I quote:
At times, Gatwa’s casting in those projects has been dismissed as an exercise in ‘box-ticking’. Gatwa scoffs. ‘First of all, you don’t know anything about me. Secondly, tick fcking boxes! People need to be fcking seen. What are you going to do, tell the same stories? Have the same people fronting things for all of eternity? Representation and inclusivity and branching out… it enriches us all. How embarrassing. You people with your tiny mindsets – open a book, look out the window and then f*ck off.’ (source)
What do I mean by the Third Argument? Well, I'm not sure I've ever made a post about this directly, but as far as I can see it, there are three main arguments for greater diversity in popular media. The first two are the most common, and they go like this:
It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see people like them on screen. That is, the beneficiaries are marginalized people.
It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see and learn about people who are not like them through art. That is, the beneficiaries are non-marginalized people, who then (hopefully) pass on the benefit by treating marginalized people better.
These two arguments are the source of a lot of debate here on ye olde tumblr. Despite both being arguments for representation, they pull in different directions. What counts as 'good' representation for the purposes of Argument 1 often would not be good for the purposes of Argument 2, and vice versa. Authentic versus sympathetic. Ugly or over-sanitized. You see this debate play out constantly. It's really hard for a piece of - say - queer media to do both at once.
But these debates tend to leave out Argument 3, the one that Gatwa is making above. And that argument cuts through a lot of this debate.
3. It is good for media to be diverse because art needs variety. The beneficiary of representation is art itself, absent any social effects that may or may not be present.
For this argument, diverse stories are intrinsically good. It is good to make art that's not just the same thing you've seen a hundred times before. Putting the kinds of people who don't often make it into mainstream media into your art is an extremely efficient way to make that happen. It's not the only method, but it's a really good method.
For representation to be 'good representation' according to Argument 3, all it needs to be is interesting. A story you haven't heard before, at least not in that medium. That which counts as 'bad representation' by the lights of this argument are stock characters, like the Eternally Patient Mother, the Gay Best Friend, the Wise Black Advisor. Perhaps there was a time in which these characters were new, but that time has long passed. There's no art in pulling a bog-standard character trope off the shelf. Show us a new kind of guy. The world is infinitely diverse. You're not going to run out. Telling the same stories with the same voices for all eternity, as Gatwa says, is boring. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, this would be. Art isn't supposed to be boring.
And that's why Argument 3 is my favourite. I do want the world to be a better place, of course, and I think art is a part of that. But the main job of art is to be good as art. And diversity in all aspects of the production of art makes art better.
Something I absolutely love is not caving into the pressure of "you HAVE to watch popular gay show the writing is actually competent and they won't ruin it this time" and being like "hmmm I don't know... I watched popular gay show before and it turned bad..." only to much later get your door knocked on and it's your mutuals crestfallen and you get to be like "let me guess. it turned bad."
not an apologizer but a contextualizer. yes the character did that but please understand the Circumstance. yes they had other options but they had to make this choice in a sea of available bad choices. and also it made the narrative more interesting. won't anybody think about the narrative!!!!!
