#impetusofadream

[theladyragnell]

I dont think you sail the Marvel seas much, but I'm back on my MCU bullshit so have these *tosses her ships on the tables and runs back out the cat flap in the door*:

Stucky (Steve/Bucky)

Steve/Peggy

Steve/Peggy/Bucky

Loki/Darcy

Nat/Clint

It has been lo these many years since I got oversaturated on Marvel, but sure, we'll give it a try! With, uh. My apologies.

Steve/Bucky: Don't Ship

Why don’t you ship it? Honestly? Same reason I'm probably never going to watch The Untamed. It saturated so much of my fandom space for so long before I had the chance to decide for myself whether I shipped it or not, to the point where it just kind of annoyed me whenever they came up. Plus I was sadly waving my Sam/Steve flag.

What would have made you like it? Getting into the MCU earlier, quite possibly! I'm not sure, genuinely, it's a perfectly fine ship so my dislike of it is all about the surrounding circumstances.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I mean, it genuinely is a good ship with a lot of evidence behind it! There's a lot of very chewy history there between them, which is always a great thing.

Steve/Peggy: Ship

What made you ship it? They're just very cute in TFA, and my general policy with canon ships that are cute is to just accept them as they come!

What are your favorite things about the ship? He respects her SO much, and that is tragically unusual! Plus they're both absolute nightmare terminators who love causing problems.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I mean, I don't know the opinions of MCU fandom at large, but much as I enjoy them, I think the MCU should have let them rest, the end of Endgame annoyed me SO much. It made a lot of the loss and grief and character development feel really cheap for me.

Steve/Peggy/Bucky: Don't Ship

Why don’t you ship it? Largely just not invested in any of the component ships to do so! Is the most interesting-to-me way to do pretty much all the component ships, though, so this is more of a "neutral" position, I guess.

What would have made you like it? Just more development, particularly on the Peggy sides of things, but that's hard given all the displacements in time!

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? Like I said above, the most interesting-to-me way to do Steve/Bucky and one of the more interesting ways to do Steve/Peggy!

Loki/Darcy: Don't Ship

Why don’t you ship it? Largely because I'm not really a fan of Loki (I am about to get myself canceled by 2012 tumblr)! And I AM a fan of Darcy, which means I am more likely to ship her with people who I like more.

What would have made you like it? While normally with canons like the MCU, the characters having met is not a prerequisite for me going "hell yeah, let's figure out how to ship this," I think more canon interaction would have helped on this one, if they had particularly good chemistry or a couple moments that target tropes I like.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I do think, my dislike of Loki aside, there would be a lot of ways to do this one that are Very Fun, from "let's be evil togther For The Bit" to "somehow Loki is Jane's sub-intern now"!

Nat/Clint: Don't Ship

Why don’t you ship it? This is another one that's really more neutral, and there was a window after the first Avengers film where I could have seen it, but with subsequent canon and just in general I feel like it's not really the most interesting option for either of them, that's all!

What would have made you like it? I think just canon going in a slightly different direction? Which, boring answer, but sometimes that's how it goes.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? Yes! There were absolutely moments in the first Avengers film where I definitely was invested in what was going on, and there was this one fic--I think it was by gyzym? It always was back than--that absolutely invested me in them for the length of the fic, I just never really sought out other fic after that.

[theladyragnell]

For the ships ask!

Alanna/Jon

Numair/Daine

Aly/Kel

Alanna/Jon: Don't Ship (kind of do as a stepping-stone ship but not as an endgame one)

Why don’t you ship it? Jon is just SUCH an asshole to her in the third book that there's really no coming back from that for me! And then on top of that, there's really no separating Jon-the-person from Jon-the-heir/king, and Alanna would be miserable as a princess or a queen, so overall a bad situation for them.

What would have made you like it? I did kind of enjoy Jon's smug bastard "I know, I just wanted to be sure you knew it too" era in ITHOTG, and I do like that they're friends and she'll call him on his shit and he'll back her up, so I think in a world where Jon didn't fuck up quite so badly in WHRLAM I could have seen a kind of pining situation where she didn't want to be queen but there was some fealty and devotion going on and it would have made a more fun endgame ship that way.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I do! I genuinely do like them as early love interests for each other, that he's someone Alanna trusts and lets in in a lot of facets of her life and that he's Exciting, and meanwhile he's learning that he can want someone different than what he's been expected to want his whole life. When things fall apart, it's because they've both grown up and grown into people who simply aren't compatible that way, and I really like that! It's very true to life! I love Pierce for giving her heroines early love interests who aren't endgame, truly.

Numair/Daine: Shiiiip? (I'm going to use the ship questions because I think they're more interesting for the thoughts I have about them than the other set but these days I'm pretty neutral on them)

What made you ship it? I think, really specifically, when I read Emperor Mage for the first time and they reunited at the end with so much relief and I think he calls her "magelet," I can't quite recall? But that's the moment where I remember going "Oh, okay, we're doing this and I'm here for it" because I am a SUCKER for a dramatic emotional reunion after some presumed death/injury and apparently I always have been.

What are your favorite things about the ship? They're both such weirdo nerds! They learn so much from each other!

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? The age gap doesn't bother me that much? I've written about that on this blog before, but a. it's a teen girl fantasy and Older Man is a really common teen girl fantasy and b. Tamora Pierce made a clerical error and in the first book their behavior is that of Daine being about 16 and Numair being about 22 or 23, so at this point those ages and where they progress from there are just kind of in my head that way, and that's a significantly less weird age gap, especially by the end of the series.

Aly/Kel: Don't Ship (simply never occurred to me!)

Why don’t you ship it? I mean, as I said above, simply never occurred to me, and while as a general policy I'm in favor of rarepairs where the characters never canonically met (if you want proof of that, please observe my Merlin rarepair output) and opposites attract ships, I think these two would drive each other up the wall in the non-fun way. Aly would stress Kel out so much, Kel would bore Aly so bad, bad situation for both of them and my least favorite flavor of enemies to lovers would ensue.

What would have made you like it? I think this requires an AU where Aly didn't end up in the Copper Isles and at least a ten year timeskip for them by which I mostly mean Aly to mature. And then I think it would require a forced proximity road trip where probably some injuries force both of them to show some vulnerability, and a common purpose that matters enough to both of them to work past the awkwardness of the uh. very different ways Alanna treats and thinks about them and the ways they would respectively feel about that.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? I mean, I feel like if you like fraught f/f ships that go from dislike to love and have a knight/rogue dynamic, this is a pretty compelling option! There aren't that many out there and this fills the niche admirably.

[theladyragnell]

Nell, anybody who knows Greensleeves/What Child Is This knows a song from the 1500s at the very least. And Good King Wenseslas is even older. I need more people to remember this!!!!!! (But I was also obsessed with the Tudors in middle school and fully believed that popular theory that Henry VIII wrote Greensleeves, so that was my first initial thought. And then i was like, Wait. I was raised Catholic and Irish. Something from all that latin and gaelic stuff has to be older than that.)

Good King Wenceslas was the one that came across my dash after I'd already voted incorrectly! Honestly I could have sat there second-guessing on what the oldest song I knew was for 10-15 minutes, I'm still fairly sure I know something older from choirs or hymns, but yeah, generally, very hard to dredge up every song I know on cue!

[theladyragnell]

Exchanging gifts for the first time: E/R

(This one Fought Me for no reason I can discern, but hopefully it does the trick!)

It’s taken them several years to invent what Joly dramatically calls The Birthday Party, with the capital letters every time even though he’s a slow texter anyway. Five of them have birthdays in the baking-hot months of June and July, and there was a year or two full of bar crawls and restaurant meals and rooftop parties where they all reached August exhausted and a little sick of each other’s company, so when Jehan, whose birthday is last in the sequence, suggested they just have a joint party in July, everyone was relieved to agree.

And then everybody wanted to give gifts and it felt weird for half of them to be opening gifts and the other half not, and then they all looked at each other at their half-hearted Christmas gathering, a holiday none of them feels quite easy celebrating, and then The Birthday Party became what it is, a chance for everyone to pass things around. Nobody gets special gifts for everyone, with that many to buy, but they pass around fancy chocolate bars and bottles of craft cider and handmade cards and it’s good. It’s better than awkward parties focused around one person.

Grantaire loves The Birthday Party. It’s one of his favorite nights of the year, and he spends the weeks before it closeted in his apartment, soberer and happier than he usually is, making matched sets of little paintings of the Musain or caricatures of everyone or handcarved soap dishes.

It’s just that this year, he and Enjolras are dating.

He’s very happy about that, to be clear, happy enough that he feels a little drugged most days, happy enough to embarrass himself if he examines it too closely, but it means he doesn’t have to restrain his foolish desires to give Enjolras lavish personal gifts anymore, and the consequence of that is that he no longer has any ideas for lavish personal gifts.

And Enjolras won’t care about that, obviously he won’t. Enjolras’s gift to The Birthday Party every year is a pot of something delicious to eat and a handwritten card each about how much he loves them, something Grantaire was unable to deal with when the notes for him were grudging and doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with now that they’re sincere. Enjolras doesn’t care about gifts and lives in a tragically spartan apartment largely because he’s too lazy to hang anything, and Grantaire isn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary at The Birthday Party except maybe a kiss.

But he still wants to, and his friends are not helpful when he tries to subtly ask them what to do, so he finally caves in, makes a terrible choice, and asks Enjolras.

“I could tell you what I’m giving you,” Enjolras suggests in a meditative tone, propping his chin up on his hands where he’s laying on his stomach in Grantaire’s bed. Grantaire gets the urge to paint him in lush oils, but he gets that urge at least once a day, so it’s pretty easy to ignore. “If that would be easier.”

Grantaire doesn’t particularly care about surprises, but he has his pride. “Don’t do that, that’s one of those things that nobody says is bad luck but which really ought to be bad luck. Shaking one’s presents, of course, is a time-honored tradition, but hearing what they are from the giver? Unthinkable.”

“I’ll like anything,” says Enjolras. “It doesn’t matter to me what you give me, or if you give me anything at all. I’ll still be here.” And then, after some silence and one of his penetrating stares, “I made yours.”

“Noted, I’ll leave the diamonds at home and will only do a string of pearls if I dive for them myself.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes and encourages Grantaire to go to sleep, but it does, much as Grantaire hates to admit it, help.

He doesn’t wake the next morning overcome with inspiration, but he finds his way to it, taking time away from his gifts for everyone else to work on Enjolras’s.

The Birthday Party is as rowdy as ever, when it comes. Grantaire’s block prints impress everyone, and Enjolras’s curry is, as ever, delicious. As the night starts breaking apart, people admitting they have to go home, the more personal gifts come out, the ones they all put off so nobody feels left out or pressured. Grantaire, who finds sharing his feelings with Enjolras more embarrassing now that they’re reciprocated than he did before, waits until Enjolras is finished with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, until Joly has draped a new scarf far too hot for the season around Grantaire’s shoulders, to take Enjolras aside.

“You settled on something,” Enjolras says, and smiles.

Grantaire, flustered more than he cares to admit that he is by the smile and the situation and his stupid idea, produces the envelope that’s been weighting down his pocket all day, four pages densely written in his horrible handwriting that alternates between crabbed and flourishing, his own version of Enjolras’s yearly letters, only he’s never said in one paragraph what he could say in twenty. “I’ll do better next year, when I’m less nervous, but I thought—people give gifts they’d appreciate themselves, right? So this is me trying that out.”

Enjolras takes the envelope and opens it, breaking the wax seal Grantaire put on because he does have some standards, and only makes it a sentence or two again before he stops, which is good, because Grantaire might combust if he’s forced to watch Enjolras read that letter. “I do appreciate it, and I’ll read it when I won’t embarrass both of us,” he says, and produces a small package. “And we had the same thought, I think.”

Inside the package, of course, is a small canvas, maybe ten centimeters on a side if Grantaire were to care to measure it, with a very careful painting of Grantaire’s couch painted on it, every bit as earnest and every bit as unskilled as Grantaire’s letter. “Definitely the same thought,” says Grantaire, and has to swallow several times before he can say anything else. Even then, he has to seize on poor Feuilly as he walks by, knowing Enjolras will have something for him to give them both a break.

They both go back to Grantaire’s apartment when The Birthday Party is over and Grantaire puts his new canvas in pride of place next to his bed while Enjolras is brushing his teeth and then falls asleep before Enjolras ever makes it to bed.

When he wakes up in the morning, Enjolras is still in bed, a rare late morning, with all the pages of Grantaire’s letter arrayed on his lap and his stupidly beautiful nose a little red with leftover tears. “I love you too,” he says when he sees Grantaire is awake.

Grantaire didn’t write the words in the letter, they felt too soon, but of course Enjolras knew what he meant. He’s made a study of getting to the heart of Grantaire’s torrents of words. “I love you,” he says, belated but no less true, and lets Enjolras carefully fold the pages of the letter up and put them to the side before he presses him back into the pillows.

[theladyragnell]

Julie and the Phantoms AU! (Preferably a nobody died everybody lives but Julie/Luke can still happen AU but if you have a better AU in mind please use that one!)

Okay so I think what happens here is that instead of dying, 3/4 of Sunset Curve falls through some kind of Time Wormhole and lands in Julie Molina's garage. (How? Why? Don't worry about it!)

Everything immediately goes to chaos, because everybody can see them, and also because the disappearance of three young musicians on the verge of success turned into a Conspiracy Thing. (Bobby probably rode that mystery to fame, instead of pretending they never existed, here.)

Hmm, not a lot of reason for them to stick with the Molinas here--ah, no, okay, I think it's that Julie's voice called them out of the time portal, so they get attached to her, and also at least one of them either lost their parents in the 30 years they lost or has a bad relationship they can't restore with parents, and Julie's dad offers to keep that one because it's such a relief to see Julie engaging with the world and with music again.

Instead of a Ghost Club we have the vague threat of some Government Agents who want to do experiments or something to figure out how the time wormhole worked.

The Julie/Luke of it all is very slow burn here, but it does happen!

... Oh, they're not named Julie and the Phantoms here, but I can't decide what they are. I feel like Reggie tries to sell them on Julie and the Chrononauts, but I don't know as they would go for it. Julie and the Missing Persons? Hmm.

[theladyragnell]

11, 12, 13 and 16 for the bookses please!!!

I'm putting most of these under a cut both because I'm wordy and because you asked all the Hot Take Questions!

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

So much recency bias in my reading! I did read some older works, though, and I think I'll shout out The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, a 2013 release, which I picked up because I had a "set south of the equator" square on my book bingo card. It's a dystopian future set in Brazil, YA, with characters who are allowed to be as fucked up as they would be under the circumstances. Quite dark! Shared a few worldbuilding overlaps with Robinson's Mars Trilogy but came at them from a perspective I liked more.

Any books that disappointed you?

Oh, always, yes, but often not the book's fault? For instance, I really want to like epic doorstopper fantasy but I simply don't, which means however much I want to love Sherwood Smith's books that aren't Crown Duel, A Sword Named Truth wasn't to my taste. And while I really loved The Hands of the Emperor when I read it, the rest of my Goddard reading has been very hit-or-miss, in ways that are more about my taste than about her being inconsistent.

Oh, no, okay: Lavender's Blue by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. I was beyond delighted to have a new Crusie in my hands at last, after YEARS, but there's too much Mayer in this one. I don't like his work, I don't like the cop love interest. It was awful reading a book with the right banter and the right zany background characters and just wholly the wrong ethos. Ma'am, you used to write about charming confolk! Why are you sanctioning a cop who shoots teens' car tires out!!!

And, unfortunately, Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, too much Not Like Other Girls there for me.

What were your least favorite books of the year?

Well, see above, to start. I'm simply not the audience for The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, the literary genre and I aren't friends, but I had to read a National Book Award prize winner for book bingo, so I cordially destested my way through that. (Well-written! Just not for me.) Unfortunately, despite this being my Year Of Tamora Pierce, Tempests and Slaughter hits this for me. It breaks the characters and the worldbuilding in so many ways that made it impossible to like for me.

And last, I am NOT going to call out specific things here, because it doesn't seem fair to critique less-well-known authors whose products I read for free, but just for completeness, I signed up for a fantasy romance advent thing, where for the first 24 days of December I got a free indie/self-pub fantasy romance, anything from a short story to a novel, and while I found a few fun ones in there (though I'd already read and adored Casey Blair's The Sorceress Transcendent and if you like tumblr's favorite trope of showing up on your enemy's doorstep saying you didn't know where else to go you should read it), overall the selection wasn't particularly to my taste. I am glad to have looked at them, and have a few more I want to read, but alas, there seem to be a few different areas of the subgenre, and this selection largely came from the ones that don't interest me.

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Ohhhhhh, I'm about to get canceled. I am so sorry, everyone, and I reassure you all that I did like Piranesi very much. But I did not really like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It wasn't BAD by any stretch of the imagination, to be clear! Over-hyped doesn't mean something is bad! Just that I'd been prepared by the general tone of people's discussion of it to be bowled over, and I spent sort of a lot of time checking the remaining page count.

[theladyragnell]

💖 Julie & the Phantoms

Julie Molina, sweetest of darlings! She's such a perfect heroine for the show, and she's got a powerhouse voice to carry it with. The whole ensemble is great, but in a rare move for me, the actual main character is indeed my favorite.

[theladyragnell]

Top two D&D subclasses?

Hmm, do I have a satisfying answer for this one? I've only played a few campaigns, and haven't really experienced many different subclasses for most classes.

Haven't played one, but watching @sovinly play a Battle Master Fighter was an absolute joy, it really adds SO many strategic choices to the class and adds a whole lot of flavor when martial classes can sometimes be a bit low on it. (Way easier to narrate a spell with a specific kind of damage than an axe hit, most times.)

And right now in the campaign I am DMing, @samyazaz is playing a UA Warlock subclass called "The Seeker" that has a lot of really fun flavor, with a planetar patron.

In general, I am a very flavor-first person, especially as a DM, so the more flavor options a subclass has, the more I like it!