If you don't mind me asking, where did the number 197320 come from for your series?
It's one of my favorites by the way.
@mckiwi too.
I'm delighted for the curiosity and it's 100% a personal nerd moment.
The first point was that I wanted to make it a number pretty close to Earth-199999 which is where the MCU resides (and has for years no matter Waldron's writing, he just can't research to save his life since Google would tell him that 616 is the comics universe ahhhhhh).
Anyway, then I realized that some important numbers: 3, 7, 9, and 1 read backwards was 1-9-7-3, and all of them together add to 20. Very close to the MCU universe but with enough changes to designate a few thousand universes away.
Now 3, 7, 9, and 1 is an important pattern. But not in the Marvel fandom. Some here may recognize it already. I'll give others a minute...
...
...
Yeah it's
3 rings for the elven kings under the sky
7 for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone
9 for mortal men doomed to die
1 for the dark lord on his dark throne
Swap the poem backwards and you have 1-9-7-3 with all 20 rings. 197320.
Where do you find the prompts/challenges to make your gifs?
I make video edits and I’d like to start making gifs as well, and I noticed you have prompts you do sometimes, like the love languages. Do you just come up with those or is it a challenge type thing?
hello, how are you?
You meant the Sherlolly + The Five Languages Of Love set? I made this inspired in another set i came across on tumblr, that is properly linked in my set.
And for example, this other set Sherlock + Greeks forms of love, was a request of someone that saw a post and wanted one for Sherlock (also linked in the set). I did a Doctor Strange version, bc someone else requested too.
Also i do like to fill prompts and challenges that i found here too. (ex, @mcuchallenge monthly Marvel prompts)
Since i dont know in wich fandom you´re interested and to make this short, i invite you to visit my blog @giftober where I host a multifandom event with 31 prompts only for gifmakers in October and the rest of the year I promote other events/challenges.
I have no idea if you’re seeing this but Sylpha wants you to know she accidentally blocked you a few minutes ago and is currently trying to figure out how to undo it. “Popped up right in front of my finger”
Gonna reply publically - with the shadow ban she may not be able to fix it just yet. Thank you for letting me know. I can't even imagine how it will feel not to see her posts anytime though the day! 🥺 Fingers crossed it can be undone. Please give her my love!
18. What are some tropes that others love, but you just tend to avoid?
Or something along those lines. Things you like/dislike. What marks the difference between a “good” and a “great” fic for you?
Whelp I lost my draft as I started this. I figured that's as good a sign as any to save this as a draft and review it a few times to make sure I'm critical of the *genre and trope* and not the individual writing it. And yes I think they're two *very* distinct things. And I'd like to piss off as few people (who aren't blocked) as possible while still remaining true to myself. We'll see how successful it is.
Cut cuz it got long and if folks click it thinking they might get mad, and then get mad, well, you can't say I didn't warn you. I don't like quite a few popular tropes in a lot of stories you see Stephen in. And I'll not hide my own opinions on my own blog. 😜 What's the terminology? Don't like, don't read? Yeah, if (general) you don't like strong opinions that might go against yours, don't read on. You've been warned!
Let's start with some of the most popular AO3 tropes, taken from the 2016 Fanfic Survey from Fansplaining. Here's the top 20 tropes across the survey and if I dislike it, I have bolded it and have a comment beside it. Otherwise I'm indifferent to it or I like the trope.
Friends to Lovers
Canon-divergent Alternate Universes
Slow Burn
Rescue Missions/Saving Each Other
Bed Sharing (aka One Hotel Room Left) Honestly I find this trope really stupid in most circumstances. It just makes me roll my eyes. This isn't to say that fics with this trope are badly written, I just... think the situation's really contrived. There's better ways to explore pining.
Teamwork
Fluff
Hurt/Comfort
Huddling for Warmth I only dislike it if it's adding unnecessary sexual tension. Like if you're in a perilous situation you don't need to talk about how omg touching him makes you feel things. It's like - dude you're gonna lose fingers otherwise. Characters, you need to shut the fuck up, this is not the right time. You guys can be romantic later. Hell this even counts for established relationships; characters getting aroused when they're in actual perilous situations is one of my biggest pet peeves in romance. It's dumb. (Note- this doesn't count if they're joking about it, joking is a great coping mechanism. I mean legit horniness as they're half-dead or something. What the fuck. Exception if the author explicitly lists being in legit perilous situations as a fetish in which case, good for author for that creativity.)
Mutual Pining
Established Relationship
Fix-it Fic
Isolated or Trapped (e.g. in a cave, a Canadian shack, etc.)
Missing scenes or fill-in fic
Everyone Knows They're In Love
Unresolved Sexual Tension
Fake Relationship (incl. Married for a Case and Marriage of Convenience)
Pining
Worldbuilding
Only 2 out of the top 20, not bad! Most are "take it or leave it" but some I like so yay.
Okay now for the next part.
On my Doctor Strange AO3 filtered page that I have up in perpetuity on my phone, I have the following filters applied to exclude (which takes off about 20% of all fics in the category from sight). Ordered from least likely to offend to most likely to offend others:
Non-English fics
Peter Parker/Stephen Strange
Stephen Strange/Reader
Not Civil War Team Captain America Friendly & Not Steve Rogers Friendly
An honorable spicy mention that isn't easily filtered so I don't filter it but I get into it below. It involves Peter.
Not English fics: With as picky a reader as I am, auto Google Translate simply doesn't work well for me. Trust me, I've tried and I was very sad when translate proved to be less than great. I wish I could speak/read all languages.
Peter/Stephen: I had to block this one because it was just coming up too much after NWH, but America/Stephen falls here as well (it's just significantly rarer and I can easily skip those fics). No hard feelings to those who write/ship it because they're, you know, fictional, but I'm definitely not a fan of the trope. Underage with two minors already skeeves me out, underage with a middle aged man and a minor is a big no-go unless the adult is framed as a villain in the narrative (and with luck gets justice served to him). But in the shipping sense this isn't usually the case in the story, and while some authors do a great job in showing it's not right/good, this isn't my flavor of Stephen at all. Even villain Stephen.
In the case the minors are aged up to be legal, I still dislike it. I find it incredibly creepy IRL when a person goes for someone who is young enough to be their child, and I can't separate that feeling in the fiction I read for the most part. The exception to this rule is when the person is like over 35 - by that age you know if you want to be with a 55 year old, and you have all that life experience. But there's so much growing done in the 20s and a lot of life experience that nothing but time can provide.
Finally, I find men in their 40s who are looking for someone (especially a girl) 24 or younger incredibly immature and, frankly put, the absolute opposite of dignified and sexy. There are exceptions of course, but my good guy!Stephen doesn't fall into that category. He's interested in brains, personality, and life experience, with looks being like, the 4th factor, haha, so no need for such a large age gap. Again, just skeeves me out.
Stephen Strange/Reader: I wouldn't have blocked it if it wasn't so prevalent, but it's literally Stephen's second-most popular ship. All respect to anyone who enjoys reader-insert fics, but I just... don't. The handful of times I've tried it I couldn't see myself as the supposed character because they were so different from who I am as a person. "Choose your own adventure" books that I read in my youth worked for me because I had choices in steering the story; that's not the case in reader fics so I'm left seeing "myself" doing things that I'd never do in a million years. That contradiction just makes me unable to appreciate them myself.
Big reason I don't have that problem with OCs is because they're not me, and so I don't have that weird contradictory feeling while reading the fic. They're another person so I can appreciate them as another character, especially if Stephen manages to stay in character within the story. But as romance isn't a genre I actively look for, I don't tend to look out for OC fics either as they're usually super romance-heavy as opposed to the romance being a side plot (which is how I get through canon char romances - if it's a side plot in the very long story I'll get through it for juicy plot).
Not Civil War Team Captain America Friendly & Not Steve Rogers Friendly: Blocking these two covers the majority of the stories that are not other-character friendly, and it blocks almost all Civil War Team Iron Man fics, so these two tags cover basically the entire gauntlet of that type of MCU fic. Ever since AO3 canonicalized those tags my blood pressure has lowered significantly and it's made browsing AO3 so much less stressful.
I'll say it up front: I don't think a fic can be good writing if it's written to be Not Team Cap Friendly. That's not to say that the writer themselves is incapable of writing quality works because that's usually not the case. But for works with that specific trope, I do not think that work can be good. A significant factor of what I consider good fanfic writing/bad fanfic writing is characterization, and the characterization is usually butchered in this genre of fic.
If an author chooses only to write this trope POV, all the more power to them. However, I think they are limiting their capabilities in choosing to ignore the grey storytelling the MCU brought to the story and are definitely limiting their visions by choosing to view these grey characters and their grey choices as black and white/good and bad with all the nuances erased. And because those choices are made, I don't think that the fic that comes out with those limitations can be considered good writing. And here are the reasons why, largely centering around characterization:
The only way these fics work is by making Steve completely OOC. I've seen writers erase all his leadership capabilities established in the first 3 films he was in, his ability to think fast on his feet, any sign of intelligence that is firmly established in the first three films he was in, and make him callous in a way that he hasn't ever shown in canon. I've seen writers make Steve unaware of email, I've seen them say that he never led men in WW2 (and isn't an actual captain), and most ridiculously, I've seen them say he was trying to kill Tony in Siberia and left him for dead there and completely ignore all his training in that if he wanted to kill Tony, he very well could have. (And ignore that T'Challa was there as well ffs - that's another rant.) But yes - this is all OOC to Steve's character. If someone wants to know why saying Steve trying to kill Tony in Siberia is OOC and thus not Steve friendly, send me a separate ask as I have a write up on Discord that I can bring here if folks want clarification on that front.
If you have to make other characters OOC to make your best boy shine better, I don't trust you to write best boy well. And usually he isn't. Tony is a terribly flawed character which is why he's so so so interesting, but Not Team Cap friendly fics are determined to erase all of Tony's flaws and everything that makes him interesting. For instance, I've seen Tony suddenly become an expert negotiator and politician, ignoring both IM2 and his lack of finesse with Ross in CW (this isn't him delegating the work to lawyers/PR people - this is in fics where he's the figurehead behind this because he's suddenly an expert political negotiator).
Then in some fics Tony's suddenly a socialist, ignoring the fact that he's made his fortune and still makes money from his corporation and there's nothing in canon that suggests that he ain't still benefiting from the capitalist institution. He's *generous*, absolutely, and I headcanon he put in hundreds of millions into rebuilding Sokovia - but he's not suddenly a socialist. He's a rich white man with rich white man privileges and while he's doing his best to make good in the world, he has benefits that the rest of the world just doesn't. And Tony's still arrogant and it can still be hard to work with him and erasing all those flaws makes him just... not Tony. He's just this bland vanilla OOC caricature.
In a lot of "not team cap friendly" fics I see a tag along the lines of "actions have consequences". If that's the case, why the hell wasn't Tony prosecuted for making Ultron? Wanda didn't force him to make anything - she amplified his fears, absolutely, but he made the robot. In secret. And that robot killed a city. Tony in CW is rightfully really regretful about it - but if actions actually had consequences and Tony tried to get Team Cap like, jailed or forcefully retired (like he or his friends do in some fics), Nat should strike back and tell everyone that he was behind Ultron. IT'S LIKE EVERY CHARACTER MAKES MISTAKES OR SOMETHING AND THAT NONE OF THEM ARE PERFECT. WHAT A THOUGHT. And that's why that tag is not very well thought out. The tag ignores the stark (hah) fact that all Avengers have made mistakes, some of them major - and Tony's absolutely not exempt from that. And his mistake-making didn't stop after he became Iron Man.
All of Tony's friends ignore that Tony recruited a 15 year old to Germany and guess what? Pepper and Rhodey aren't Tony boot-lickers. They'd give him the appropriate "What the fuck were you thinking" language because yeah, that was fucked up! Ignoring that happened is another big item in these type of fics.
Stephen's personality is typically bland and he often has no life beyond Tony's in these type of fics. He definitely has no opinions on the Avengers that *differ* from Tony because him having his own opinions, or taking the time to form his own opinions from his own interactions, would be showing more nuance and depth than these fics want to get into.
Stephen's often petty and violent, especially towards Steve - and again completely ignores all of Tony's mistakes because Tony doesn't make horrific mistakes, oh no! I'd argue the petty violence is OOC, but fucking DS2 and fucking Waldron Jossed that. So if you want that petty violence, it's technically seen on screen, but that's a *Waldron* idea so... yeah. I don't know any big Stephen fan who is particularly fond of Waldron and what he brought to Stephen's character. But this whole essay is about OOC characterization so I can't argue that this is OOC anymore. Fucking Waldron.
Like Stephen, Rhodey and Pepper also lose their personalities and ability to argue with Tony because Tony is always right. Rhodey forgets that Tony is a billionaire and can easily go use a lab in Stark Industries buildings across the country, or go to one of his many homes that all billionaires have because they're *billionaires*, if he *has* to avoid Steve for some reason. Rhodey also forgets that Tony could handle this with the best therapist money can by if he can't physically handle being in a room with someone he dislikes. If Steve actually tried to kill him in a fic, please go back to the first bullet point on this list. An IC Steve wouldn't so there wouldn't be that fear of more physical retaliation because Steve wouldn't be trying to stop Tony from killing Bucky, so again, unless Tony tries to kill Bucky once more, the situation won't escalate to violence.
But yes, in these fics, Rhodey would prefer that the civil rights breaking Accords that allow indefinite imprisonment with no promise of trial stand. He'd rather the rest of the Avengers remain fugitives with no home because he forgets his friend is a billionaire with virtually unlimited resources to go wherever he wants and to get the help he needs. The growth we see in his stance that came with IW after he saw the Accords' rollout just poofs away.
Pepper tends to be turned into a secretary again just there to help with Tony's emotional needs instead of a powerful CEO whose really fucking busy running a company.
So with an OOC Steve, it usually leads to an OOC Tony, OOC Rhodey, OOC Pepper, and OOC Stephen. And that is why I consider these fics bad.
There may be exceptions to this, but when I was still attempting the tag in 2019, I never found a fic under the tag that was an exception. I stopped trying the last 3 or so years. And unless you're an author who's written in that tag and you want me to read your story and want to try to change my mind (because you're a masochist? why would you want to do this to yourself?), don't send me those fics. 99% I'm going to find them bad.
I'm not gonna subject those authors to the above opinion because they enjoy the black/white world and they have a huge readership who loves that crack. And good for them! That doesn't change my opinion that I think it's lousy writing because characterization is 70% of my opinion of a fic. If you have all this OOC characterization in a non-crack/parody fic, I just won't have a high opinion. And I'll say it in my own space under a cut, but I'm not going to search you out anymore - I haven't since 2019 (early 2020 was the cut off). Writers have the right to write what's popular - and I can dislike that popular content. But it's a lucrative readership and if that black and white world brings you joy, then all the more power to you.
Important: Not character-friendly fics are different from Dark!character fics. Dark character fics acknowledge that in canon, the characters are written as protagonists and heroes, and the author is purposefully changing this. In not character friendly fics, the author is usually inventing something stupid or terrible (and often enough ooc) for the character to have done/not done to strengthen the position of their chosen protagonist, or is ignoring canon traits of the character to, again, strengthen the position of their chosen protagonist. This is especially seen with Steve.
Honorable mention: I dislike the majority of fics (no idea of percentage but very likely over 50%) labeled Supreme Family, *strictly* due to how Peter is treated. Let me explain.
Peter is an incredibly independent teenager living in NYC with his own friends and his own brains and solo superheroing the majority of the time. These fics have a tendency to erase all of this, making him overly reliant on Tony, making him act as if he's aged between 8 to 12 rather than 15 to 18, and erasing his connection to May, Ned, and MJ. His whole life is made secondary to be part of the Tony Stark fanclub and it's *weird*. Peter is so much more than his connection to Tony and fans of this trope sometimes forget this.
I'll give a real world example. There's a large age gap between my sister and myself, so I got to see her in her teenage years while I was an adult. She's smart, fiercely independent, and had good friends and extra curricular activities throughout high school just like Peter did. We had family dinner together on occasion but she wanted to be doing her own thing as much as possible. She'd text my parents for the "Hey I'm alive" check ins but otherwise? She was AWOL as much as she could get away with.
Peter may be less so, especially if May insists on dinner together at least a couple times a week with his form of extracurricular activities, but I cannot emphasize enough how Peter having his own life is so important to his character and him being around Tony most of his free time outside of school and Spider-Man is *weird*. Even if he likes him!
This is just one teenager in my example, but a staple of teenagers is finding their independence as they grow into adulthood. Clinging to other adult figures does not tend to be the trend with those who have a big independence streak.
Peter in canon is all about establishing his independence - and you could see this especially throughout all of Homecoming. His independence is integral to his character. And if Tony was his adopted dad in the fic, I'd say him always hanging out with him is doubly weird because, again, independence. It's a major part of most teenagers and it's very well established in Peter's personality.
So yeah. Fic writers please stop writing him like a 10 year old unless he's actually 10 in the fic. Let him live his own life in the Supreme Family trope. Let him go out with friends and do after school clubs and not go to Tony's lab after school every day of the week because it's just not him and his movies established that very well. Let him get annoyed at the tracking and let him yell at his parental figures because conflict is normal. Let him be a teenager.
(And as someone who loves Found Family, I can't emphasize enough how much that theme falls short if the characters within the family forget their independence and lives outside of the family. It's just no fun.)
Stephen does not kill to the best of his ability and he doesn't cherish needless violence for the sake of it, but if he ever came across absolutely terrible crimes (especially against kids) that he could not get persecuted in the court of law, I do think he might curse them in some manner or banish them to an absolutely terrible dimension to a fate worse than death, similar to how Kaecilius got.
But he'd make the act quick and focus on the victims who need healing after. The villain would barely get his time in comparison, though their fate would be terrible.
(Again I think he'd pursue a lawful conviction first or some sort of justice system within Kamar-Taj, if applicable/possible. But it may not be possible in all situations).
▼ - childhood headcanon
A couple...
I think he's wanted to be a doctor for a while, before Donna's death. His inability to save her even after this want only pushed him further.
Her death was the catalyst in the family dynamic breaking apart. I don't think either of his parents (in the MCU verse) were abusive or neglectful, but that none of them handled their grief well and didn't get therapy for it.
I think he grew up in a more rural part of Nebraska, so he's familiar with how a farm is run but doesn't particularly enjoy it. He's used to animals, though his family worked with crops rather than livestock.
I think he was valedictorian in his (small) graduating class.
AU Fantasy (characters turned into dragons or set in a fantasy world for example)
Hahahah. That's too easy.
AU Fantasy is interesting. Hmm. I'm considering it as the world itself rather than shapeshifting into a dragon since that's basically the same as a cat or dog or something--unless it's in a medieval-like world, which is, well, AU fantasy anyway xD
Solid C
It wasn't something I read in LOTR since, well, duh. I first encountered it in Sherlock and I found some good ones, some eh ones, and some "ah this is tripe" ones. Basically same deal with the MCU.
Basically a good author can sell it really well, and a mediocre author will remain mediocre or outright bad. Fantasy AUs require some world building, but keeping the character the core of what makes them them can be difficult in AU settings.
A big reason I don't like AUs like Dark AUs or Mafia AUs or something similar is that in order for it to work, the author usually has to change core aspects about the character's personality to make it work. In the MCU, I like the characters not because they're played by Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr or Tom Hiddleston or what have you, but because I like the characters for who they are. I like their personalities, and a core part of their personalities is their morality. Some AUs that are in the darker spheres have to completely contort these personalities because that's the nature of the AU. But in my head, they're not the character anymore; they're just wearing the character's name and appearance.
Some really, really talented authors can make the Dark AU work by showing the descent into darkness. A really excellent example of this is The Price of Ambition by technetium43 which has a couple versions of Stephen and shows excellent, excellent paths into how they came into the way they came to be. I think for a Dark version of a character to work (that isn't established in canon), it's an author's job to show us how this happened. It's something I also attempted to do in my Earth-197320 series, which also has multiple Stephens, one less good than the other. Whether I accomplish this successfully is up to the reader.
But you're not asking about Dark AU, you're asking about Fantasy. The reason I brought up those other AUs is that Fantasy AUs often have a difficult time keeping a character's personality consistent, at least moreso than in the home universe. Because of this, the character often doesn't feel like the character that I fell in love with due to his character traits, and so I find the story less interesting. If the author can build another background that can keep those traits and it make sense, I'm more likely to enjoy the story. If they have a good plot to accompany it, all the better.
I know both Imagined and FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls created multi-chapter fantasy AUs 3-5 years ago that had solid world-building and well-characterized Stephen Stranges, if you're looking for recommendations. Should be easy enough to find in their profiles. I'm also open to recs as I may have very well missed some as I don't go looking for the trope. I did try to RP it on Discord one time but it didn't go anywhere, haha.
The closest I've gone into the trope is my LOTR/MCU crossover and that's probably as close as I'll ever get to it. (Funny story - one of my latest reviews on that fic was actually on fanfiction.net as I was still posting there when I wrote this, and it was like a Good Reads review which was just hilarious to me. They didn't like it, but that's okay cuz I didn't write it for them, I wrote it for me. My Strange is still rough in this one though; I was still getting his character down while writing it and I think a bit too much Sherlock slipped in from time to time.)
Yeah, a lot of this is off topic and long, but would you expect anything less from me?
How are things going on the Wong, Target Sales Associate fic?
I'm like 1,000 words away, or about 95% done. Big issue was that I got stupid sick for a week, and then the last week and a half I've been feeling very blegh and haven't done anything creative. (Something happened mid-month that may have also had more of an effect on me than I was hoping, at least on my creative juices.)
I'll see if I can wrap it up soon because I was planning on having it out before the end of February and we saw what happened there.
I can try and poke a bit at it tonight to see if I can't force some words out.
13. What are some of your writing and reading pet peeves?
Mmmm.
Writing: the brain refusing to cooperate when you want to write but don't have the energy to. I think this is the bane of most writers.
I also get a bit annoyed when there's a word that I know exists for the item I'm trying to write, but I cannot remember it. This happens more often than I'd like. I tend to leave a comment/note on it in my doc to come back to it so I don't get out of the flow of writing. The last word this happened with was earlier this week with the word "repercussions"; for some reason I couldn't remember the "re" part of it. Google's synonym finder is a lifesaver in these cases. If you can't remember the exact definition though, it becomes more difficult.
Reading: Lack of proofreading from the author. It's difficult for me to ignore when I see a ton of errors that would have been caught by a grammar or spell-check program. Those who write ESL get a pass since configuring a spell checker for a second language can be difficult, though I definitely applaud those who take the time to do so.
I'm uncertain if incorrect dialogue punctuation (the basic stuff) is caught by such programs. If they're not, I'd just implore writers to learn the basics of punctuation of dialogue in English. It's difficult to read otherwise, and I don't think I'm the only one who has that problem.
Oh, also, not adding a full space between paragraphs and new lines for new speakers. Basically formatting 101 that is incredibly easy to look up or see in other's stories.
Also misspelling "rogue" as "rouge" and yes that's literally the one misspelling that has me twitching compared to all others and it's 100% due to the MCU fandom.
There's honestly more peeves in my reading than writing -- it's no secret that I'm a picky reader with standards that some consider unreasonably high -- but I figure this is enough for now. If you want me to go into a pet peeve list of Tropes I Dislike In MCU Fanfic feel free to hit me up in a follow up ask for Maximum Chaos.
