Pronoun Trouble

There was a Tumblr meme where someone sends you a blue heart emoji and you respond with the summary of an AU fic? Anyway, I did that, and here are some of the results:

( Chloe actually takes the redemption route in Origins )

( Adrien the Dreamer )

( Cardcaptor Sakura AU )

But first: Happy 40th anniversary to my parents, uh, yesterday! (I celebrated in person with them and a few dozen other people, no worries about me missing it in brickspace.)


H'okay, back to business. Some of the changes in fandom over the past 20+ years came up on Tumblr, and I shared both a trope I haven't seen in a while, and the idle thought I had towards sporking it but never got around to:

I still want to do a subversion of this particular trope I remember from slash/yaoi fandom back in the day: Your preferred same gender ship had to go undercover as a couple at a gay bar. I feel like it became a less common trope as homophobia decreased? It was also usually part of a fandom that involved criminal investigation of some sort.

Anyway, one day I really want to write that trope, except:

Character A is particularly squirrely about going

Doesn't have a good explanation but insists that they're not homophobic (and may have actual receipts to back it up)

Ends up unable to get out of it

When the two of them arrive at the bar, you learn that Character A is a regular there and has been vocally pining after someone who matches the description of Character B

But some part of me has been reluctant because people won't recognize the trope anymore and realize that I'm lovingly sporking it, and apparently that's enough to ruin some of my interest in writing it? Like a part of me insists that the trope in question was a "time and place" kind of thing, and we're no longer in that time or place, so I shouldn't do it. And I know I shouldn't care, but like. It's not like brains make sense at the best of times, so here I am, I guess.

I still pine for that idea, but yeah. Brains.

Anyhow, any of you have ideas that you didn't get around to and now just no longer seem like they have a place?

Comments on the Autistic!Grinch fic that I wrote for alexseanchai are really reinforcing the fact that "Disabled person gets their happy ending not by being made to do things the abled way, but by getting accommodations" is a story that really needs more telling. (Important note: For people with chronic pain, for example, "accommodations" is allowed to take the form of a magical cure of some variety, whereas for autistic folks, by contrast, accommodations might be neurotypical people doing things their way for once.) Naturally, my ADHD brain took one look at "happily-ever-after", and, of course, rushed to connect it to fairy tale retellings 😛

My first thought was a Cinderella who can't walk unaided for very long, and for whom climbing stairs can mean being stuck in bed for at least the next day. ( More spaghetti throwing under the cut, with a Content Warning for ablist dipshittery )

Other ideas so far are not nearly as well-developed.

* I'm thinking Beauty and the Beast where Beauty is either blind or Deaf? (I'm leaning towards blind, gotta be honest, but Deaf has potential as well.) Her dad picked the rose because it smelled heavenly, and was a very pretty color that he hadn't seen on a lot of roses. (Maybe Beauty has a gardening hobby and her dad stole an entire clipping?) When he tells her what happened at the Beast's castle and that the Beast is going to make him stay there forever as repayment for the theft of the rose/clipping, Beauty's like, Pfft, fuck that! I'll go. It won't matter to me how hideous this beast is, I can barely see more than blotchy colors anyway! While at the castle, she finds out that the castle's magic is very accommodating to her blindness, and the spirits or whatever are great at helping her navigate, and the magic can even read books to her! The Beast catches her attention when he stops being so much of a jerk and starts doing what he can to make it even easier for her to get around the castle, etc. (I'm kinda tempted to make the Beast autistic? But I'm very worried about the whole "Love is a cure for his beastliness!" thing and how to approach it so that it's not gross.)

* Snow White with chronic pain. Maybe the queen gets rid of her because negotiating with the country that supplied one of the chief ingredients for her pain meds was getting in the way of her agenda? Snow White somehow makes it to the home of the seven dwarves, who are pharmacists experimenting with various plants; they've got an apple tree whose fruit is even better for Snow White's pain than whatever the previous thing was. Wipes it completely out as long as she has one a day! And that's how it keeps the doctor away 😉 Not sure why the queen would target Snow White again, but she swaps out one of Snow's regular anti-pain apples for one that is supposed to kill her or something, only the dwarves are able to wrangle something at the last minute to put Snow in magical stasis instead. From there they work on a cure, possibly getting into contact with the country that supplied Snow's previous pain meds for help. Snow wakes up and makes the dwarves the official kingdom pharmacists, and makes sure that the anti-pain apples are available far and wide. Maybe also the apples also have a very slow curative effect, so after a few years of eating one a day she might not need them at all? And maybe not knowing to account for that is part of why Snow was not outright killed by the poisoned apple? Hmm.

* An alternate Snow White option might be Diabetic!Snow White, who gets put into a diabetic coma by the queen. Super Pharma Dwarves stay, though.

* Food Intolerance/Allergies Sleeping Beauty, maybe? In this case, she's not cursed, but the fairies reveal her intolerance at her birth, and the specific foodstuff is banished from the castle. Like Snow White, her sleeping ailment strikes when some appears at the castle and she takes a bite of it. (Assassination attempt, maybe?)

*I'm passingly aware of an actual, extant fairy tale about a girl who is fitted with magic silver prosthetic hands and marries a king, but it's been an age and a half since I read it.

Anyway, lots to think about.

Another thing I really feel the need to explore in fics sometime is Alya as genre-savvy. She's canonically a superhero fangirl, and was even before Ladybug came on the scene, so she should actually know a number of very good arguments for why superheroes knowing one-anothers secret identities can work in their favor, for example.

I also want to explore how I think she runs the Ladyblog, because my impression is that she runs it more like a fansite for fiction than a news site dedicated to a particular topic. They're similar concepts, yes, but what's relevant and useful to post to one isn't necessarily to the other, and how each one approaches secret identities in particular differs wildly.

A fansite is going to collect all the information possible from as many sources as possible in one place; for a fictional superhero, that definitely includes things like secret identities. A journalistic site about real people should ethically be going in with the understanding that there are some things they shouldn't publish without the consent of the subject, and personal information is definitely at the top of the list.

This approach also might be why Alya originally published the Lila interview without verifying her sources; with fictional superheroes, especially as DCU and Marvel comics are run, there are many sources of canon, and if the Ladyblog is a fansite, Alya may feel pressured/obligated to report every snippet of even potential news and rumors she comes across. If the Ladyblog is a more journalism-oriented website, she would likely feel more obligated to cite her sources and do more research in general.

Fansites, especially fansites about fictional characters and franchises, can be a little bit more ethically gossipy than journalistic sites, is what I'm trying to get at. One of the things I'm not sure about, though, is whether Alya realizes she's running more of a fansite than a journalistic site, or if that's even her intention. I think that would be an important angle to explore someday.

(Though not, I'll admit, nearly as much fun as Alya chatting away with Nino (and possibly Marc and Nath?) about the logistics of superheroes knowing each others' secret identities where Marinette can hear.)

Finally came up with a series name for the little tidbits I sometimes write when folks throw prompts around: Prompt and Circumstance. So far only My Hope Lives in You is up, but I want to get that Oblivio Duo Meets Post-Oblivio Duo tidbit for flightfoot/keyseeker up as well, followed by this little bit of a thing prompted by sweetmeatdale/callmedale (though I gotta dig around and see if he posted the prompt for that one, or get the actual text from the Discord).

Speaking of that Oblivio + Post-Oblivio Tidbit...

( Just gonna stick this here for now kthx )

And now, that might be all the productive I have in me today. Still good to get this much done, though!

...taunting me with plot bunny outlines that don't have proper endings!

Current Dust Plunny: Stealing Cat Noir's Pyjamas.

( Outline-ish thing goes here )

Major Priority: Pod Together fic

Of lesser importance:

* The time-travel vacation plunny, as prompted by alexseanchai (feel-good fluff is my catnip)
* Five Times Adrien Said He Was Fine And One Time He Told the Truth (reference)
* Five Times Ladybug Had a Legitimate Reason to Break Into Adrien's Room And One Time It Was Purely Selfish (reference)
* That time (those times) that most-likely-Sabine caught Tikki sneaking cookies in the middle of the night (reference)
* The mutated five-plus-one smut fic
* Stealing Cat Noir's Pajamas
* Finally get around to the Origific Idea-To-Outline Walkthrough

Bonus art bunny: Draw wasps (not to be confused with WASPs) being cute, courtesy of redsixwing


Everything except the Pod Together fic can wait until August at the very earliest. And now, to resist all other prompts until at least one of the non-priority ones is finished, including self-prompts. Ahahahaha, good luck with that, self.