babydraco | Entries tagged with ouat

Harry and Draco were the Swan Queen of Potterdom. I don't know if I mean that in a bad way or not. Because I certainly adored the pairing and wrote it myself.

She was probably never going to go there. Not just because of how risky it have been, but also because she had such a different view of Draco than the fans did. She didn't understand how the fans could like him so much or why they assumed he was attractive (because, JKR, he was That Guy that's in every group of teenagers and That Guy is usually somewhat goodlooking, and people assumed that the point was "beautiful face hides ugly personality" also, should've cast an ugly dude for the movie). And some people liked him because they had empathy for his situation, especially since Harry, who was supposed to be capable of more empathy than Draco, never showed much towards him until the middle of Halfblood Prince, and Ron showed none at all towards him. Ever.

I enjoyed the ship but as you know, I had one I cared about a lot more. And mostly what I wanted was for Harry and Draco to end up as good *friends* who finally *understood each other* and could put their talents and complementary personalities together and do great things. Because they could have. Draco was a really talented wizard on his own, and such a strong personality that eve platonic, he and Harry would've been great to watch as friends. I wanted Draco to become not just "not evil" but actively good. But they didn't. And that made the series just a fraction less awesome than it could've been.

So even though it's still one of the best series I've ever read/one of the best film adaptations I've ever seen, my motivation to read the fic has dimmed just a bit. Is there anything new left to say? I'm sure there is, I guess. But it all feels less...something. I don't know.

I don't see Draco as entirely comparable with Regina,for a long list of reasons (starting with the fact that he did make a conscious choice to refuse to be evil and apparently stuck with that)but Harry/Draco sort of was the Swan Queen of that fandom. The uber pairing that was absolutely everywhere that you weren't allowed to not like, whose fanon rose to become nearly equal with canon, so much so that it was hard to believe it was never actually real.

And also sad proof that a significant majority of fans can see something as totally undeniably there and the author can still be completely clueless and baffled about where you're getting that. But also that this does not mean the author hates the sexual orientation of that ship, just that they may have been thinking of someone else entirely to fill that role.

When people include in the tags, every.single.canon, character who appears, even if they're only in the story for one scene. Because it means that when you search for that character in the general pool of tags, you end up with all these stories that aren't about them. Which is fine if the character is going to be playing a strong supportive role anyway, but don't list everyone you can think of who appears and make me slog through a fic full of people I don't care about to get to the one line that person has.

Jefferson often gets relegated to playing the Sassy Friend of Rumple/Mr. Gold and Belle. And that's okay, because he IS their friend and Rumbelle IS officially canon (I like them well enough anyway but the existence of their romantic relationship is not up for debate). Jefferson ships them so much. So so much. But it has a sort of Third Wheel aspect to it.

unless they're having the rare threesome. So often, Rumbelle fics will list Jefferson right after the main pairing, which makes all these Rumbelle fics show up in the Jefferson tag.

But anyway, you shouldn't have to list every single person who might appear in the fic if they're not going to contribute something significant.

I'd be good with more femdom in the Once fandom. I mean, I realize it isn't the place to go if you're looking for rough/kinky m/m slash. Guy slash *period* is dwindling rapidly due to the hilarious role reversal of men's relationships to each other being minimized or ignored (when they do talk, it's in short scenes that communicate only information needed to move the plot along because no one cares what books they're reading or what they think about the movie they just saw). I would love it if they were trolling misogynist Hollywood writers on purpose but I'm sure it's just sloppy writing that men often don't have scenes alone together and don't seem to actually hang out with the guys that are allegedly their friends). Because the interpersonal relationships angle suffered in general this season compared to last year. There used to be guy slash, but all the ships seem dead and all the intership fighting (which there is apparently a lot of) is about het and femslash pairings.

Anyway, it seems like a fandom perfectly set up for lots of great femdom (of the het kind) but it's surprisingly rare. There are only four on Ao3. And all but one are the same frigging pairing. Not that I really have a problem with that pairing and it *is* a canon couple but it seems like everything's about them- search for another character and you'll get several fics in which your character appears...as their third wheel friend. I like that he's their friend, at least in fanon, I even like that sometimes, there are threesomes, I just... And there's the Cora/Hook-in twisted but consensual D/s thingy (so, basically, canon) abusing a third guy-fic- which is not a bad fic at all but is 1)frozen in mid rape due to not being updated for awhile, and 2)not really what I'm getting at because, rape.

I was thinking more a long the lines of people who enjoy being together. I'll take dub con because it exists in canon anyway, but yeah.

Yeah. This is a show with some really overwhelmingly strong female characters so I would like to see a little more variety in the het fic. Once again, people have joked about it but then they don't write it. Or maybe they do, and I don't know where it is. I don't read much fic on Tumblr, for example, because I think Tumblr is a terrible place for posting fic. It's for sharing photos, news and short posts. Not for long, complicated things that deserve equally long, complicated responses.

It'll be a fifties (or early 60s) AU inspired by the music of Lana Del Rey. But I don't know when I'll get around to it.

I saw Gatsby this weekend and have Thoughts but also don't know when I'll get around to them.

I had an Emma and Jefferson thought...

1) I really think that if they were together, they'd have this interesting "traditional" gender role reversal. Emma is a cop, the sheriff in fact, an authority figure in a traditionally male dominated field, while Jefferson essentially works in the fashion industry. If he works at all, which it doesn't seem like he does because he's super rich, and mentally ill, and shy about interacting with the rest of the town. Emma has a boy, Jefferson has a daughter (who he has adorable tea parties with and sews stuffed animals for). Due to the fact that Emma was a teen mom who only recently met her ten year old child, (and now only informally shares custody with the woman who actually raised him) Emma often comes off as more of a "cool aunt" than a responsible parent, Jefferson has more actual child raising experience.

In "Hat Trick", when Emma is waiting in his living room, she's standing there in a pose that I can only describe as totally butch, while he's serving her tea.

Which just makes me picture their relationship as Emma going out to chase down criminals and Jefferson being this sort of house husband doing a lot more of the nurturing. He's probably good at cleaning because I bet he's *fussier* than her(he is in every fic with every pairing), and I bet he's a great cook because, come on, he's had a *lot* of time to learn how. And he goes to Henry and Grace's soccer games and all the moms give him the side eye and ask for his brownie recipe. But that's as far as it goes because they're all kind of afraid of Emma.

2) I find this adorable and hot. The concept of them taking care of each other but not in the way everyone might expect. But then she'll be there for him when he runs out of spoons and freaks, and he'll be very dangerous to anyone who tries to hurt her.

( The Bad )

( Once spoilers )

I had more to write but I'm so irritable right now that I'll leave it for later.

http://pinterest.com/pin/66428163223869990/

http://pinterest.com/pin/46724914854050831/

http://pinterest.com/pin/212302569904082078/

Basically, they're Polyvore sets for a Rule 63 Sebastian Stan...

HAH! I love it (and I am totally requesting that for the Porn Battle). They seem more based on his characters than anything (#1 Jack, #2 Carter, #3, obviously Alice in Wonderland themed) but then, I think his personal style is harder to pin down. Cause sometimes he wears stuff like this Although I think #2 works well.

Where's the Bucky and Chase Collins outfits though? (I will be right back)

a few weeks ago, I made some outfits for Jaqui Benjamin, based on/inspired by his outfits on Kings (and some totally made up ones from the Fic) and a Jefferson. I am actually going to try and find reasonably priced versions of the Jefferson outfit pieces, because I actually want to wear that to my next cosplay opportunity. For Halloween and/or Arisia I have found that it's best to dress in layers (Arisia is in Boston in midwinter, and no one ever wants to drive me so I always have to come on the train and walk to the hotel from there) and more cost effective to use pieces that I can reuse later.

Did you know, we have the same birthday? I don't know how I kept missing that info, but yes, same day, one year apart.

Why yes, I'm not writing like I'm supposed to be, how did you guess? I need to get outside and clear my head.

Later, I'll try to pull some thoughts together on last night's Once Upon a Time.

Why is it that so much of the really inventive kinky porn for his characters is in the Captain America fandom?

Don't get me wrong, I am loving a lot of what I've found there and yet...I would not otherwise be interested in reading Captain America fanfic if Bucky Barnes was played by someone else. The idea that there might be more fic in volume, I get, but I don't get why one fandom is kinkier than others.

Why is something like this what I found in the Captain America section and not...?

I think the "Kings" fandom was a little nervous about going to truly unusual places. Understandable, I guess, but I've been going to weird places with those characters with gleeful abandon for years ~~pot induced threesomes and discipline relationship AUs~~ that I forget for some people, it's hard enough to adjust to the idea of basic D/J porn.

Well, and that's not to say the Once fans are un kinky. There are a lot of filthy prompts on their kink meme but a significant majority of the over 100 pages of prompts are still unfilled. People have ideas but they don't seem interested in following through. It's disappointing, after the great experience I remember with the A Team kink meme. Maybe it's because OUaT is such a femslash heavy fandom, the m/m isn't as much of a focus- but, you know, het prompts that aren't Rumbelle would also be okay.

Since I am shipping Mad Swan (one of the few het pairings I've encountered in semi canon of anything where I'm genuinely, authentically like "I'll be in bunk") I have read a lot of fic about them. Which brings me to a pet peeve that only grows stronger every day.

Stop saying he's tall. Geez, seriously, stop it.

He's not tall. He's not so short that you could put him in your pocket or anything(he's taller than Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr, I believe) but he's certainly not tall enough to ever be described accurately as "tall". we've been through this already

look at him standing next to both Lana Parilla and Jennifer Morrison in 'Hat Trick',. He is taller than them but not by enough for it to be something worth remarking on, just in the general way men are often taller than women.

And yet a lot of OUaT het fics go out of their way to make sure we know Jefferson is "tall". I ran across a random fic that had Emma and Ruby describing him as "six foot three". In what alternate universe where he is played by a different actor?

It's like the opposite of that slash trope where writers make/draw one of the guys- usually the uke/bottom as extra short. And use of the word "little" has appeared in some Hatter slash (he's almost always the bottom in OUaT slash). But Kings fic usually correctly observes that Jack and David Shepherd were nearly the same height.

Other young men on OuAT as their heights compare to Jefferson:

Josh Dallas (David/Charming) is six foot one.
Colin O'Donahue (Hook) is five foot eleven
Eoin Bailey (August) is six feet
Jamie Dornan (Sheriff Graham) is six feet
David Anders (Dr Whale) is six feet

Not only is he not six foot three (at five eleven, he's below average and one of the shorter guys in this cast), none of these guys are. It wouldn't surprise me if they deliberately tried to make sure Prince Charming was the tallest guy in the cast. And notice, Josh Dallas is not even six foot three. Do these writers not understand how tall six foot three actually is?

Sebastian Stan has added muscle recently, but...your height is your height once you've reached it (he's twenty eight) until you get old and start shrinking. And he's five fricking eleven (in some places reported as five ten or even five nine but let's go with five eleven).

In Jacob Clifton's recap of this episode of Gossip Girl, he nicknames Carter Baizen "a wee sexy Hobbit".

Look at a lot of photos of Stan (as I have recently) and notice that he's often wearing boots with thick soles or a slight heel to them...

While Jefferson is not in the least evil, he lacks honor. We have seen that many of the "good" characters lack honor. Gepetto comes to mind.

If he had real honor, it would prevent him from entering into what is essentially a betrayal of an innocent party, Emma. Regardless of how much he wants to be with his child. Regina preys on people with a poor sense of honor.

Prince Charming is a character with an almost impossible sense of honor. Hence, he is incorruptible.

That's pretty much the cornerstone of Jefferson's “stupidly keeps trusting Regina” problem. Con artists say that the easiest people in the world to con are the ones who are dishonest themselves. It's exactly the same problem Jack found himself tangled up in when he got into bed with Uncle William. William preyed on the fact that Jack was desperately willing to do anything to win that crown, and when Jack wanted out, he couldn't extricate himself because he wasn't an innocent party. If William had chosen David (Shepherd not Nolan like it makes a difference) as his potential puppet, David would've been like “ Um, no thanks, Jack's Creepy Uncle, I don't want to be king of anyone.”

Biblical David definitely ended up corrupt, but largely on his own terms, because he had such a strong sense of agency. (B!David: "Oh, I'm totally going to end up corrupt, but only after everyone gives me All The Things because they think I'm a good person").

The Relationships Thread, as linked to earlier, but this is the part that upset me.

Then someone suggests Jefferson could hook up with August (this was before ( spoiler ) and someone else points out (as I did a few entries back in this journal) that Storybrooke lacks any gay characters. The thread devolves from there for several pages into an argument about GLBT representation on the show and it does so in a way that nearly makes me cry.

Apparently, the show shouldn't “do gay characters just to show how progressive they are” and people “don't see why the show needs gay characters”. A couple of people even tried to claim that the show shouldn't be ethnically diverse "just to show how progressive they are" (or something to that affect). Well, of course not, they should do it because it is reality that people are diverse. Yes, even in small town coastal Maine.

( Because...well...because! )

Actually, all joking about slash aside, I am in love with the idea of Emma/Jefferson. If it never happens, I will cry, I promise you. I.will.cry.

I mean, I've read some hot, hot Hook/Jefferson, which makes sense with the leather pants and the eyeliner and the moral ambiguity and both coming from Victorian children's novels with somewhat disturbing subtext...but really, I don't trust Hook with anyone on a permanent basis. He's Captain fricking Hook. Jefferson is ambiguous and has the clear goal of only really being concerned about his own family, while Hook is a straight up villain. Sexual encounters, sure, but I can't picture him like, moving in and helping pick out curtains with a man who is so fiercely protective of his preteen daughter. And that means I can't get behind a serious Emma/Hook relationship either.

No character with a kid is going to let that man in their house.

If they had brought Kings back for multiple seasons, that might not have been the best thing after all. It could've weirdly ended up preventing these actors from getting other work.

ABC wanted to do a Mad Hatter spinoff. It is going forward but will not star the Hatter after all. Sebastian Stan couldn't do it, because he just signed a six movie deal with Marvel. Yes, you read that right, he had to turn down the chance to star in his own tv spin off because he's been hired to costar in more movies in the Captain America franchise. Yeah, it's good to be Sebastian Stan right now... and he wouldn't be able to do any of that if he was committed to the fourth season of a seriously heavy drama series. Furthermore, if “Kings” was still airing at 8 pm on Sundays, that's the same timeslot as “Once Upon a Time”. Not only would Kings find itself competing with this huge hit, that is, in some ways, a similar show (but lighter and softer*) but it would mean that OuaT would have no Mad Hatter-as-memorably-portrayed-by-Stan. Because The Big Three networks are notoriously possessive of their employees and would never allow one of the major stars of a show to have a recurring role on a rival network's show that their show competes with for ratings. Another reason Kings should've been on cable.

I do really hope he can come back once in awhile to OUaT. I hope he's not so busy that they move on without him and we never get to find out what was up with him and Regina (exes? step or half siblings obsessed with each other a la Cruel Intentions?)or how he lost his wife and why he ended up poor or whether he will hook up with Emma. And what is his full name? Jefferson what?

And I just want to get something I want out of tv for once, because nothing else is going well for me right now.

( Kings and Hatters )

screencap is from here

**characters from a classic story lifted en mass out of their original setting and put down somewhere else.

I really ship Aurora/Mulan. The gay vibe was practically pulsing off my tv and I am definitely, to judge by the amount of A/M fics on Ao3, not even close to the only one. I think everyone's pretty much assuming they're a gay couple now. And I hope the writers notice and do something about it. Because it'd be great if a gay relationship on tv could just happen organically, instead of being meticulously prepared for, either making two people gay from the start, or doing old character plus brand new person, instead, just have two random people just fricking fall in love for no reason.

( Because where are the gay people in Storybrooke? )

Recapper points out that Regina rapes people. The writers apparently don't agree, but the writers are wrong in this case.

( Rape talk below )

I wonder how they'll deal with characters who were raped in their original stories (actually or metaphorically).