teaberryblue | Recent Entries

I have been having a lot of feelings about Ant-Man over on tumblr if anyone is interested:

http://teaberryblue.tumblr.com/post/123425398469/on-hank-pym-marvel-comics-and-domestic-abuse

http://teaberryblue.tumblr.com/post/123378396524/thebastardsstolemywaffle-teaberryblue

So, back last year, I got really upset when I heard that Janet Van Dyne was being more or less completely removed from the MCU franchise.

She is the only member of the original Avengers team who is not getting her own movie (even if Hank Pym has to share his with Scott Lang). Even Captain America, who wasn't a founding member, got a movie.

She's also the only woman. Funny about that.

So I wrote the opening of a Wasp movie and then turned it into a comic. I've been working on it on and off since last October and I'm very pleased it's finished.

You can read it here on Tumblr

Or here on Ao3

Originally posted on tumblr

I wish I didn’t have anything to write about, because both of these things are unpleasant. But yesterday, two things happened. One of them was resolved well and the other was not at all, and in both cases, the outcome was entirely determined by the response of male onlookers and men in perceived positions of authority.
( Read more... )

So I just signed up to do the Natasha Romanoff Big Bang (15k) and I’m intending to do the Cap-Ironman one (25k) as well, but I’m not entirely sure what to write for either of them yet. So if anyone has any thoughts particularly on things you’d like *me* to tackle, let me know. Even just vague ideas of things you’d like to see my take on or themes you want to see me write.

Title: A Fistful of Steves: This Town Ain't Big Enough
Author/Artist: teaberryblue/

zia_narratora ()/

raikishi(Raikishi)
Universe: Multiverse, focusing mostly on MCU, 616, and Ultimates
Pairings: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Other Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Characters: Tony Stark (MCU), Pepper Potts & Other Avengers (MCU), Steve Rogers (Earth-1872), Steve Rogers (Ultimates), Steve Rogers (Earth-3490), Captain Americat, Steve Rogers (Earth-616), Steve Rogers (Earth-2108), A Lot More Steve Rogers
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Spoilers for AoU, Spoilers for comics through Avengers #44, some minor violence/injury, some mildly sexual content
Word Count: 33,143
Summary:
When Tony Stark takes a bullet intended for Steve Rogers, he wakes up in a world entirely peopled by alternate incarnations of everyone's favorite Star-Spangled Man.

Welcome to Stevechester, Population: Steve

Words by teaberryblue, art by Raikishi

Fic and art both here on Ao3

Written for the Captain America/Iron Man Reverse Bang 2015

notes: This is my personal ode to the swansong of the multiverse, dropping in anticipation of today's Ultimate End #1.

Thanks to Sineala, Moonlit_Lampshade, and Angelinoshi for betas!!!!
--Tea

I know a lot of the people I know on the internet are folks who were never the “cool kids” when they were younger.

And sometimes you run into people who seem resentful of this, and seem to think that now that they’re adults, it’s their turn, now they get to exclude people from things.

But one of the things I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that sometimes the kids that the rest of us thought we the “cool kids” never considered themselves to be the “cool kids.”

There may be varying degrees of correctness in that assumption, but there’s one thing that stands out as true: adolescence is a bitch, and everyone has memories of being excluded, left out, picked on, trying to fit in, trying to impress, and often failing.

We all do. We all have a memory of an outfit we bought that we thought was SO AWESOME that other kids mocked, or a memory of that boy or girl who kissed us “on a dare” or “as a joke,” of being picked on for having big boobs or no boobs, too much or not enough facial hair, for being awkward or wearing glasses or having acne or covered in body hair and not allowed to shave yet.

And we have a memory of a group of other kids who all seemed happy and all seemed to have a sense of belonging, like some golden light was shining down on them, and how badly we wanted to be one of them, if we were one of them, all our problems would be over.

But here’s the trick: now you’re a grownup. And yeah, you’re going to run into people who like you and people who don’t. And sometimes you’re going to meet a new person and they’re going to like you. And I don’t mean in a romantic sense. I mean they’re going to want to hang out with you and listen to what you have to say and your head will be going HOLY FUCK THIS PERSON IS SO GORGEOUS AND SMART AND TALENTED WHY ARE THEY TALKING TO ME WHY IS IT ME THEY WANT TO HANG OUT WITH.

And that? That is because now you are the cool kids’ table. Who sat at that table when you were a kid doesn’t matter anymore. Now you’re assembling your own table. And you get to pick who sits at it. If someone’s a jerk to you or your friends, you don’t have to give them a seat at your table.

And you can be that person who remembers being left out and decide this is your turn to be the gatekeeper, and try to keep people away from your table because they’re not as talented or not as experienced or skilled or rich or capable or whatever. Because you do get to pick.

But you can also keep the people who are kind and care about others even if they’re not the best at every little thing, you can teach them about the things you love in common and they’ll learn, and they’ll probably teach you something in return. And that is the really fucking coolest kids’ table

I was just rereading part of 1796 Broadway today and I realized something. There are two major supporting characters that we introduced who play similar roles in terms of being sometime-support, sometime-antagonists, explicitly non-romantic sexual partners of major characters.

One of them is a man. He's in his 40s, very worldly, brilliant, manipulative, deliberate, and sociopathic. He is intentionally malicious and cares about no one but himself. He tries to damage a character's relationships with other people on purpose, engages in gaslighting, lies, and forces people into situations where there are dependent on him so that he can demand they owe him. He is unhealthily obsessed with the character he is sleeping with and causes real harm in his attempts to forward his possessiveness and jealousy. He's smooth, sly, and passive-aggressive.

The other one is a woman. She's 24, very naive, guileless, terrible at lying. She made one very bad decision and found herself mixed up with bad people in an attempt to right it. She is by nature honest and has the best intentions, owns up to her mistakes, calls people on their bullshit, and won't engage in games of manipulation. Her mistakes are all made in the service of friends, and she will put herself in danger to help the people she cares about. She is supportive yet not enabling, sets good emotional boundaries, and listens to other people's problems until she thinks it's unhealthy and then tells them so. She's defiant, stubborn, and temperamental.

Guess which one of these characters readers loved and which one they hated.

Out of curiosity, after reading that Marvel article earlier, I went to Wikileaks and searched the database of Sony emails.

There are about 173,000 emails in the archive.

Of those, I searched for:

“feminism” : a word that appeared in 17 emails (.0098%)
“feminist” : a word that appeared in 43 emails (.025%)
“sexism” : a word that appeared in 29 emails (.017%)

Nearly every one of these emails was to or from Amy Pascal, who was fired after the leak.

Also:
”racism” : a word that appeared in 60 emails, most of which are either news reports, or, again, conversations including Amy Pascal (.035%)
“sexual harassment” : a word that appeared in 65 emails, most of which are alerts, news reports, and employee newsletters (.038%)
“misogyny” : a word that appears once in a news report (.0006%)
“gender issues” : a phrase that does not appear (0%)
“gender identity” : a phrase that appears three times, all in newsletters (.0017%)
“transgender” : a word that appears 38 times, all but twice in newsletters. The two outliers are a script query to Amy Pascal from an LBGT writer, and a warning about a man who “felt up his transgender niece’s boobs.” (.022%)
“genderqueer” : a phrase that does not appear
“non-binary”: a phrase that does not appear
“intersectionality” : a phrase that does not appear
“black women” : a phrase that appears 12 times, all of which were news reports (.0069%)
“black woman” : a phrase that appears 34 times, all of which were news reports (.0197%)
“lgbt: : a phrase that appears 148 times, most of which are news reports, and the vast majority of which are not are all part of the same thread in which Sony execs discuss putting out PR fires after HRC asked them to boycott a hotel that had booted an LGBT teen suicide hotline organization. (.086%)
“glbt” : a phrase that appears twice, but is two copies of the same email (.0012%)
“queer” : a word that appears 11 times, all in relation to announcements and news reports, with the exception of a single email about how teen girl audiences enjoy gay love stories. (.0064%)
“homophobia” : a word that appears 8 times, all of which are news reports and announcements. (.0046%)
“disability” : a word that appears 85 times, the vast majority of which are in reference to insurance coverage and HR requests. (.049%)

That is how little these words were being used at Sony.

None of them made up even one percent of the emails being sent or received.

I could probably keep doing this all night but I feel like this is enough of a representation to illustrate the problem.

This is a dream I had two nights ago!

( mouse people and lizard people )

After several conversations with

henpecked about the limitations of Tumblr and the way Tumblr's structure discourages in-depth critical thought, I decided I really wanted to move this to LJ.

I kind of want to move a lot of things to LJ. But we're going to start with this. Obviously a lot of spoilers under the cut.

Originally posted here

( 7000 words and unedited, which is sort of how the movie felt at times. )

1) Name change. Unified internet identity.

2) I'm going to be posting here again, even if no one else is. Expect different content than before. More media criticism, less personal stuff. More public.

We're doing this. Who's with me?

Man, I feel kind of weird realizing that I forget to post on LJ these days.

I've written a bunch of stuff.

Heroic Men and Valiant Women is a very short bit about Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter that I wrote for Veteran's Day.

rainy_day and I wrote "How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation" by Clinton F. Barton, Age 39 for, uh, Thanksgiving. It's about Clint Barton and Sif making friends, oddly enough. And exceptional birdery skills.

I've also written sixty fucking pages of a graphic novel about what happens to Bucky Barnes after (and before) The Winter Soldier. It takes place in June, 2014 AND in 1991. It's called The Prizefighters and I update it every Monday on The Saddest Avenger. You can read it from the beginning here-- only the first 48 pages are on Ao3.

Finally, most recently, I wrote an absolutely insane assignment fic for a holiday gift exchange. Dreams of War, Dreams of Liars.

The recipient wanted a story where the PASIV tech from Inception ended up being used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There's a tech that's very similar in the comics, called Dreamvision, so I ended up combining Dreamvision with PASIV and writing a story about Tony having to go into Steve's dreams. It was a lot of fun for me because it allowed me the opportunity to write about a lot of weird stuff, like Midnight Racer, Steve's favorite pre-war radio show (which is entirely fictional and only mentioned once in 70 years of comics history as far as I know).

Anyway, that's what I've been up to, writing wise. Happy New Year, everyone!!!!

We finished the fic.

It feels weird.

I wrote a very long thing on tumblr which you may read.

So, some of you may rememeber this dream I had back in March

For those of you who don't want to reread, it's about a movie actor who had the little "condition" where every character he played came to life as a doppelgänger.

( Anyway, I had another dream about him. )

Oh hey so I slipped and 22000 words of Captain America food porn.

Starting From Scratch

It's a story about Steve's first days out of the ice, reacclimation, and finding a connection to the new century through food.

It stars Steve Rogers and his complete disconnect from the world, Bobbi Morse and her crumbling marriage, Nick Fury and his impressive knowledge of whisk(e)y, and a beat-up copy of The Joy of Cooking.

It's nominally a prequel to 1796 Broadway, but pretty much independent and follows the events of Captain America: The First Avenger.

I realized I should post this here, in case there's anyone who wants to take part.

We recently got to 100000 hits on our fanfic, which is kind of huge. We also hit 20,000 comments, which is pretty much unheard of-- the average for Ao3 is 5, and the next highest is about 7,000.

So we wanted to do something fun and fandom-friendly and interactive to celebrate

To that end, we're hosting the Earth-1796 Fanworks Challenge, a fanfic and fanart contest for readers* of 1796 Broadway. (*you do not need to be a regular reader to enter, though it will help!)

Description and Rules here
Read 1796 Broadway

( More below the cut (including prizes) )

Please let us know if you have any questions! We'll be happy to answer!

♥

Jekyll & Charlotte

I just posted the last chapter in the first long fic I've ever completed from beginning to end. It clocks in at about 78k words. It is NOT Winter Soldier compliant as I actually finished writing it before the movie came out (which is eerie in some of the similarities, but hey...)

I'm just copy/pasting my blurb from Ao3:

In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, four Avengers move into Stark Tower. One goes back to California. Another goes back to Asgard. Natasha is tasked with keeping the team in one piece. In the beginning, her job is a tangle of conflicting personalities, emotional fallout, and distrust.

After a while, it stops being a job.

This story is also a love letter to all the books I read growing up, to Asbury Park, with a little side of She-Hulk. It also addresses what the Avengers were up to during Iron Man 3.

This is an official prequel to 1796 Broadway. Read in either order.

I just finished writing a 77000 word fanfic.

FINISHED.

Like, it has a beginning, middle, and end.

It needs some minor editing, but.

FINISHED.

Jekyll And Charlotte (It's about half-up now, I'm posting it as I edit)

Bruce/Natasha, post-Avengers.

So, I had this dream last night.

It was about a 30-ish film actor who had sort of JUST entered the ranks of household name movie star.

He had a little problem.

Every time he wrapped a film where he played the lead, he somehow spawned a doppelgänger. Each doppelgänger acted like the character he’d played in the film. So, one of the doppelgängers was a washed up pro ball player, one of them was a pirate, one of them was this shy housepainter, etc etc. He had like six or seven of them. But, you know, he’s a successful movie star making millions per picture, so he just kind of pays to support them, and they all live in his house with him.

This makes his life kind of complicated. He doesn’t want anyone to find out about the doppelgängers, so they just kind of hang out in his huge house in California, watching movies and playing video games and swimming in his pool and stuff. Not all of them get along.

This also has kind of put a damper on his ability to date, like, ever.

Then he’s shooting a movie in this old farmhouse, and the niece of the woman who owns it is staying there. He’s kind of entirely smitten with her, but doesn’t make a great impression.

He has to leave to go film in Singapore, but he really likes this girl. So, what does he do? HE LEAVES THE DOPPELGÄNGERS BEHIND AS THEY OFFER TO COURT HER FOR HIM.

You can totally see how this works out.

WHOOPS.

( MORE: You know how sometimes over the course of a day, bits of dreams come back to you? )

That's my right hipbone.

tea berry-blue

i like chickens.

Ant-Man stuff

Flit like a Honeybee, Sting like the...

Why I Need Male Allies

Fic brainstorming help!

New Fic: A Fistful of Steves/This Town Ain't Big Enough

The Cool Kids' Table

Hindsight is marvelous

Social Issues in the Sony Email Leaks

Dreamtime!

The Longest And Most Meandering Review of Age of Ultron You Will Read

Fuck it

New Fic!

The End of an Era

Dreamtime!

Starting From Scratch

1796 Fanworks Challenge

Jekyll & Charlotte

DONE

Dreamtime!

This happened:

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July 2015

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