I genuinely believe the fact that so many popular Imogen/Laudna fics are no-powers AU is, if not the main cause, at least a factor in why so many people resist or even are hostile towards any interpretation of Imogen that isn't largely sweet and harmless. Like, write the fic you want, but Imogen in particular is someone so fundamentally shaped by her powers that to write a no powers AU is to write what is essentially a completely original character who happens to share her name.
I think it's made even more obviously a factor because many of those fics try to reconstruct aspects of Imogen's personality by giving her anxiety or agoraphobia (or both) but the problem is that those are purely mental illnesses, rather than something that both gives her powers and penalties (again, the X-Men problem). Some real-world mental illnesses cover the symptoms of Imogen's abilities, but none cover the abilities themselves. It's quite literally a removal of agency: they take away what she can (and frequently does) do with her powers, leaving only the negative effects on her behind while eliminating the negative effects she can have on others. No wonder there's this overwhelming push to woobify her from that corner; they've utterly defanged her and are now crying that other people who can still see her fangs (and even like them) are talking about them.
And the thing is, for all I can be negative about fanon, it is, ultimately, fine - so long one can either keep it separate in one's mind from canon or else remain in a particular fanon sandbox. But unfortunately people leave the sandbox, and when other people respond to the canon Imogen, who as of episode 81 (RIP CRStats) has voluntarily used Detect Thoughts/Open Mind 60 times and has openly stated her intent to use it specifically to know what her party members are doing in advance and theoretically prevent it, the fanfic crowd is utterly unable to react to this intelligently. The idea of Imogen they have is sweet girl with severe anxiety and a goth girlfriend. The problem is this construct exists only in their favorite fanfic writers' domestic fluff modern AU no powers setting. And frankly, I'm not interested in talking about that warped mirror version of her when I could have all the fascination, complexity, glory, and agency of the real thing.
123 notes
·
View notes
Helloo i just came to your blog and found the whole apocalypes au interesting 👀
I dont understand much of the au concept tjo so mind enlightening me? ^^ i wanna see more of it akskaosn
The basic concept is that the world is in disarray and has fallen into an apocalypse due to the effects of blot on mages/magical creatures producing more Overblots than ever before, which has forced those living in this new world to adapt and evolve in order to survive. This means building strong, sturdy compounds and using any means necessary to stay afloat (moral compasses are very skewed and corrupt in this au). Additionally, since women are now seen as a precious resource, they are kept within the compounds for the sake of reproduction. There are seven major compounds: Heartslabyul, Savanaclaw, Octavinelle, Scarabia, Pomefiore, Ignihyde, and Diasomnia, all with their own sets of regulations, traditions, and ways of living. Noble Bell is technically a compound of its own, with Rollo as the leader, and RSA also counts as a compound. But we haven't touched much on both yet!
I will link all of the discussions that have taken place with this au so that you can read more! :D
✧ dorm compounds
✧ bride selection (idia & azul)
✧ information about the husband selection
✧ bride selection (jade)
✧ husband selection (floyd)
✧ husband selection (malleus)
✧ mute bride (azul)
✧ darling who avoids bride selections
✧ husband floyd
✧ gentle non-con with riddle
✧ riddle (un)willingly sharing darling with azul
154 notes
·
View notes
slightly serious but its been on my mind so. as someone who went through autism-specific abuse from parents as well as the american school system from a young age, i don't like people using experiences of people like me to discourage self diagnosis. like.
i've seen people in the wild saying that if you self diagnose autism, you're making a mockery of people who underwent the abuse, especially in schools. but the thing is, the schools especially knew i was autistic before i did!! they treated me as autistic long before i was diagnosed, and were in fact the ones who pushed for my diagnosis. i did an entire paper on autism specific abuse for school and did a lot of research into the topic, which is how i realized what i went through was autism specific abuse and how it affects me. and yes it exponentially affects those diagnosed from a young age but it was awful before i got diagnosed and it got worse after!! so a professional diagnosis can hurt people!
if you were able to mask well enough to escape it, i am so fucking happy for you. like. this is incredibly traumatizing. and it's really underrepresented. and if you use the trauma and abuse people like me have gone through to tell people they aren't autistic and are hurting us, don't you fucking dare. you need to be blaming the people who abuse us and who make it hard for the people who are self diagnosing to get the proper diagnosis- and make life exponentially harder for those of us who are diagnosed.
by attacking people who are just seeking help and community and understanding, you aren't helping ASA survivors. you're hurting people (who might even have experienced that!! you don't know!!) who are trying to live their life with the most understanding of themselves.
anyways this blog supports self-diagnosed autistics and autistics who didn't learn until later in life and autistics who masked so well nobody realized and autistics who didn't realize that what they went through was autism specific abuse. i love you guys. we're in this together.
51 notes
·
View notes
so we finished watching season 2 of Picard last night, and just. whew, friends, what? a truly baffling array of choices. things i simply cannot get over:
the commitment to doing every Single joke from The Voyage Home while simultaneously Strenuously Avoiding doing anything campy or goofy
like, the reason TVH works is that the main cast are all just Buffoons — Kirk does not know how money works, Spock is dressed as a jogger in a bathrobe, Scottie tries to talk into a computer mouse, and it is all GREAT. in Picard S2, it's like, they say they don't know much about this period in history, but they all seem to click into place fairly seamlessly. in general watching this new era of Trek, it feels like the writers have simply forgotten the pleasure of a good silly camp romp, and constantly referencing one of the best silliest campiest romps in the canon is uh, not helping
the climax of the season revolves around?? Q's character development??? Q???? QUEUE?????? baffling
in general what was even Q's plan here. is he . . . trying to sabotage the Europa mission or not? why is All Of This necessary for Picard to forgive himself, if that's Q's real goal? just like generally this framing does not make sense to me and so resting the entire season on it is. a choice, i guess
also when have we ever been asked to care about Q's interiority before, when have we ever been asked to be On His Side as opposed to whatever human he's fucking with
how are we relating to canon here. h o w. there are some Real deep cuts, but then also some like, fairly prominent episodes that are just?? ignored???
like, ok:
Guinan and Picard have a fairly significant adventure together in 1800s San Francisco (in “Time’s Arrow”). it is canon then that she doesn't know Picard yet. this is an incident she will remember for 500+ years and reference on board the Enterprise D. but in this season of Picard, she appears not to know him at all and to once more be meeting him for the first time. these two first meetings are . . . difficult to reconcile
but we are apparently doubling down on “Wesley Crusher was just the super specialest boy and he managed to transcend the limits of physical reality because of his big special brain”
we are apparently pretending that Robert Picard just . . . doesn't exist? isn't around for Jean-Luc's childhood? this isn't really technically a continuity error but Robert and Jean-Luc's relationship felt real and specific and grounded in the particulars of their two characters whereas Yvette just feels like generic sexist “ooooooh his mother was ~crazy~” schlock, and losing the former for the latter is uh. not an improvement
we're doubling down on Gary Seven, tho! Gary fucking Seven!!!!! remember that beloved character from an episode that was definitely a good idea??? why
actually, specifically, tho: it feels like this is a continuation of Star Trek’s reluctance/inability to grapple with the less savory parts of Gene Roddenberry as a human being, particularly his misogyny. to stick only to the example at hand, he made the “Assignment: Earth” filming experience so miserable for Teri Garr (by, for example, relentlessly shortening the length of her skirt, even over the objections of the costume designer) that Garr has absolutely refused to talk about Star Trek in subsequent interviews. i was obviously not on set, but the vibe i get is extremely that filming that episode would clearly and unambiguously been a hostile workplace environment by contemporary standards of sexual harassment. so i, personally, have a hard time being like “ah yes, ‘Assignment: Earth’, what a fun bit of forgotten canon to incorporate wholesale into our new series without grappling with the specifics of its creation in any way!”. the vibes are just . . . rancid
anyway, moving on from continuity gripes,
it feels like a real missed opportunity to have not cast David Duchovny as the FBI agent. this is really not the showrunners’ fault, but i’m in a hating sort of mood, so i’m going to take off points anyway
“Dark Page” was not a great idea in 1993 and it isn’t any better now
circling back to “covering the hits without any understanding of what made them good”, Raffi’s encounter in a camp of unhoused people feels like a nod to “Past Tense” without any willingness to actually . . . engage with what “Past Tense” was saying. for all that i have some issues with some of its narrative choices, “Past Tense” devotes significant, sustained screen time to characters that society has decided to discard and is relentless in hammering home the message that “this is not just and it cannot be reformed into justness”. here, Raffi stumbles across an encampment, someone immediately tries to mug her at gun point, she beats him up, she shares a rueful quip about “gosh, wild that such a prosperous society can’t be assed to take care of people”, and then we just move on and never mention this again. like, we get Words saying that Homelessness Bad, but what we are shown is “unhoused people are scary and dangerous and it’s ok for our heroes to beat them up”
(i actually think that In General there is a lot of wasted potential with Raffi, altho mostly the fault here lies in season 1. “very competent Starfleet officer who is also dealing with paranoid delusions and falling apart at the seams about it” is an interesting premise for a Star Trek character if done well! and then S1 is just like “oh, nope, actually, she was right about everything, there was a massive, bizarre conspiracy that did exactly what she thought they did, she's fine and correct and everyone who ever doubted her is an ass”)
(i also think that the “love always ends in grief” sequence from Discovery S4, for all of that season’s considerable messiness, is a much tighter and more powerful expression of that theme than the wandering, haphazard approach to it here. i think these shows are meant to be watched in concert, but the back-to-back seldom does Picard any favors)
we continue to lean into Human Exceptionalism and i continue to roll around on the floor going “ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” about it
more elaborate thoughts on that go in my “if i were making Enterprise” post, tho
THAT SAID
on the topic of exceptionalism, i hate the FUCK out of the bit in Crusher’s recruitment speech where he’s like “do you want to be ordinary, or do you want your life to have purpose and meaning?” as tho???? ordinary lives????? cannot have purpose and meaning???????????? look me in the eyes, writers. no, no, look me Directly in the eyes: fuck you, fuck that, i am doing cartoon violence to you. the mindset that only extraordinary lives are worth living is toxic bullshit that distorts so much of our mental, political, and artistic landscape. ordinary lives can have so much meaning and purpose, they can be so very beautiful and rich. ordinary lives can be very good to live. i think Star Trek, in general, focuses too much on elites as The Only People Who Really Matter, but to elevate that to the level of explicit text is just. fucking devastating. unspeakably bleak. absolute philosophical train wreck of a season finale, on a par with Discovery’s “a Starfleet admiral actively and deliberately planned and tried to carry out a genocide and faced zero career repercussions for it that we can see”. clown car nonsense
in conclusion: i have drunk the haterade, g-d this season sucked, i can’t wait to make April 13 “Jurati eating car batteries day” and take it away from the Homestucks
15 notes
·
View notes