every few months I remember this fandom and I check in on here and on ao3 just to reminisce. if any veterans are still around and see this, I wish you nothing but the best and I hope you're thriving.
maybe it sounds lame, but being in this fandom was transformative for me. It gave me a place to develop and channel my passion for writing that was not only free of judgment but relentlessly encouraging. I found my voice as an author in my time here, and picked up so many different stylistic habits from other fic writers that I still use today. I gained so much confidence in myself and my craft from being a part of this community, and I've yet to find another creative space like it.
it's been two years since I last posted so, predictably, I have more thoughts, but I'll spare everyone the monologue. the point is that I'm so grateful to have been a part of this community and to have shared in the joy of creation with so many other passionate and lovely people. it gave me a sense of purpose and fulfillment in writing that was, and still is, so hard to come by when every responsibility was more pertinent than writing for enjoyment.
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Hi love, just wanted to let you know that Iāve just reread Beautiful Wreckage and itās still one of my favorite fics in the GG fandom. I was wondering how youāre doing? I hope youāre okay. Are you still planning to write something for the GG fandom in the future, even though the show ended? Iād love to read more from you. I just love your writing so much. ā¤ļø
crying over this. anon, i hope you see this because seeing this message is the best thing thatās happened to me all week and couldnāt have been a better welcome back.
but, to answer your first questionāand thank you so much for asking, btw, youāre so sweetāwhew. iām good for the most part, but iāve had too much on my plate pretty much since the semester started, and it really hasnāt let up. iām still working on balancing my academics with my job, my relationships, myself, and all that biz, but iām definitely feeling better than have the past few months (hence me having the time to hop back on here for the first time since august). i hope youāre doing well, too. :)
it always hits me so powerfully to hear that people are still reading beautiful wreckage. not only was it the first story i ever shared with the fandom, but it was also written when i was still in high school as my first experiment in āpublishingā my writing, so to speak. i love writing with every fiber of my being, and itās the one thing that has always given me a purpose at every stage of my life, so to have my first experience sharing it be met with such overwhelming support and love was something that still makes me emotional.
building off of thatāyes, i absolutely plan on writing more for the fandom. with my workload right now, itās been incredibly difficult to find time for my writing, but i have two WIPs that iāve been jumping between whenever i have free time, and i hope for at least one of them to be finished before december. iāll be pulling back a lot (which isnāt really saying much considering i used to start one fic during one season premiere month and finish it just in time for the next one, lol), but my anxiety attachment doesnāt seem to want to loosen its hold on these ridiculous characters anytime soon.
iām so sorry i was offline for so long and didnāt see this sooner, but i appreciate it nonetheless. my heart is so full. sending you so much love, anon <3
August 21st is Fanfic Writer Appreciation DayĀ š
Letās be honest - we all forget to leave a comment sometimes. We donāt always go out of our way to click theĀ ācome talk to me on tumblrā link on AO3 to scream about the fic in the authorās inbox. On August 21st I encourage you to take a moment and show fanfic writers that you appreciate them!
How can you do it?
leave a comment andĀ kudos on every fic you finish reading. Doesnāt matter how short. Doesnāt matter if youāre just repeating what other people have already said.Ā Just be kind! Keysmashing, Caps Lock, and live commenting appreciated! (Bonus points if you leave a comment on every chapter)
ideas for what to put in a comment: one | twoĀ | three | four
floaty review box for ao3 (super useful for commenting as you read + it has a āreview tipsā button if you feel stuck)
reblog ficlets, drabbles, fics, fic rec posts, etc. PutĀ a nice comment in the tags. Remember that likes, while appreciated, donāt give the writer any exposure, meaning the posts donāt reach more people
go to your local fanfic writerās inbox and talk to them about their fic of your choice. Let them know how long ago youāve read it and what story point/sentence/scene still makes you smile when you think about it
send thank you messages to fic writers. In a world where you have to pay for almost everything, theyāre supplying you with countless hours of free entertainment. It can get quite lonely withoutĀ getting messages acknowledging the hours they spendĀ writingĀ stories - let them know their time andĀ effortĀ isĀ appreciated
make fic rec posts and @ the authors whose fics youāre recommending! (believe me, fic writers love to see their stories in these posts)
create something inspired by a fic!Ā You can draw fanart, make a moodboardĀ or aesthetic post, or even write a song for the fic you love. Whether youāreĀ a beginner or a pro doesnāt matter - the thoughtĀ alone is whatĀ counts more than anything <3
buy the writer a coffee if they have a ko-fi page and you have some change lying around c: Caffeine keeps most fic writers awake when they struggle with a particularly slow draft or a difficult scene. More coffee, more content.
These are only some ideas out of the sea of possible ways to appreciate fanfic writers. On August 21st show the writers in your fandom(s) some love <3
reblog those fics of yours. Heck yeah, let people see them again! Sometimes a fic gets buried under all the new content real fast and you might feel too guilty or shy to self-reblog it again. Iām telling you now: do it <3
talk about the favourite fics youāve written.Ā What inspired you? What were you trying to convey? Think a DVD commentary of your own fic (see fic exampleĀ here. More examples here and here.)
reblog fic-related question games and encourage your followers/readers to participate! Here are some that Iāve found: one | two | three
most importantly, take some time to appreciate how far youāve come as a writer. Go through your stories, the old and the new. Rediscover the things you enjoy in them, notice the strength and flow and beauty in your words. YouĀ did that, you smart cookie, you; donāt hesitate to feel proud c:
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Weāre a network blog for the Good Girls fandom discord server, Sweet Pās. Our goal is to build a supportive, fun, and interactive community where fans of the show can inspire each other and make new friends!
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: Group chat spaces for a variety of topics, writing prompts and challenges, future fandom events, stream or watch parties, game nights, further opportunities to encourage and inspire each other, and much more!
TO JOIN:
follow this network blog!
reblog this post to spread the word! (if you like!)
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE SERVER!
Weāre open for affiliates! Feel free to apply here! :)
If you have any questions about both the blog and the server, donāt hesitate to contact us!
oooh, well, before answering the question i think i should say that i disagree that rio has been freely claiming beth as 'his girl' and that there was anything romantic or tender in the wire scene. my feelings on the wire scene can best be summed up by @elise-jupiterstyle here and @mego42 here. but the gist of it is that while i think there's a degree of emotional intimacy in the scene in the fact that they're both extremely vulnerable and exposed, there's also a deep brokenness where neither of them wants to be doing it but both of them feel that they must, and in that moment, the tragedy is that this is where they've ended up when it could've been so, so different.
as for rio claiming beth as his girl, i think there's two main things that complicated that for me.
one, that phrase has only been used in a negative sense by rio. he uses it to claim possession over her and to highlight the fact that beth is 'special' when he's threatening to kill her (i.e. he will handle her himself, since it's personal now, since she's put that much of a target on her own back that he can't pass the job off to someone else), he uses it for lucy to trick her into trusting him at the same time that he's trying to diminish beth at the same time that he's signaling to her that he's about to kill lucy, and he uses it as a manipulation tactic to once again claim her as his to use as his fall guy and to hint that he's suspicious of her loyalties.
two, while there's that whole aspect to it, there's another aspect in which yes, rio is possessive over beth and does try to stake a claim on herā4.06 being a key example of that with the hand on her backāthere's a whole other way where he actually tries very hard to pretend that she's not his girl so as to not give nick ammo against him. from 4.09 onward, when nick insinuates that rio killed lucy "for" beth, rio fumbles around between bragging that he's gotten her into bed ("she knows"), pretending that it's just sex ("a girl like that doesn't need to be romanced" and "i'd give her what she needs"), acting like he doesn't care about her at all ("she's just some bitch"), and revealing how highly he thinks of her and hates to give her up ("you think you'd have her?"). in that sense, i don't think rio was ever freely claiming her as such because he spent so much time trying to deny that that was the case.
as for what he meant when he said "he's in our way," i think it's both personal and professional as it's really hard to disentangle the two with them anymore. however, i think he meant it more in the business/partners sense because at that point, rio had realized that nick wasn't in the way of them romantically. he'd thought that might be the case with the gifted bourbon bottle, with beth pressing on that bruise in the back of the strip club, but when he realized beth was playing nick, i think he also understood the truth that nick wasn't "stealing" beth from rio in this way. i think it's romantic in the sense that rio chooses beth because he loves her, and he betrays nick because nick could never understand that and crossed the wrong line, but i also think rio loves beth in a way that is actually fairly free from romantic expectations. what i mean by that is that rio loves her whether or not she's solely his or whether or not they're sleeping together or whether or not they're even getting along.
so yes, i think there are romantic motivations in rio's decision, but i don't think there are romantic expectations. i don't think he was putting nick away to open up an avenue of romantic possibility with beth. he was just choosing her because she was who he wanted to be at his side. the best part of it is that it's because he genuinely chose her for that reason that i think the possibility of romance blooms between them again. rio picked her because he believes in her, and that made beth feel seen and valued and respected, and that's always been a core component of their romantic connection.
Have you ever tried to imagine the situation where Beth found out Rioās name? She informed girls about him named so, but how did she know it?
Ah! That's actually in canon ā she found out his name was Rio after finding it on Eddie's phone in 1.04, and that his real name was Christopher from his neighbour's girlfriend in 2.11!
The fact that she remembered after 1.04 when both Annie and Ruby forgot is absolutely one of my favourite things though, haha. Just the idea of her holding onto it in her head, turning it over and fixing on it and feeling it in a way that spilled out of her like it did in 1.05 is so cute and indicative of so much curiousity in a way that Beth usually tries to stifle. I love itttt.
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If you want further proof of their fetishization, look at the GG YouTube channel. Not fan made stuffāthe actual YouTube channel. Itās all Rio stuff/compilations/etc. Those are the videos that get views. The other clips donāt rake in nearly the same numbers.
indeed, anon! their YT channel was actually at the forefront of my mind when i was writing that post.
for all the lovely gifs that were captured from it, ārioās all yours ā 15 minutes in heaven with good girlsā bad boyā was the most brazen display of fetishization theyāve ever created. it didnāt sit well with me the first time i saw it and now all i feel is contempt for them so blatantly exploiting him to increase their viewership. itās giving petting zoo, honestly, and itās disgusting.
this is a very cynical bomb that iām about to drop with absolutely no context but they really did just fetishize rio to gain viewership without actually ever giving a shit about his value as a character, and iāve gotten myself into a bit of a spiral stewing about it.
tw: my opinions again
like i didnāt want to think about my favorite show so negatively before it ended so i tried to steer clear of any posts that discussed it for the sake of my own enjoyment but after how short the finale season fell from my expectations, itās hard not to be pissed off. because ever since they had beth shoot rio in season two iāve been waiting for them to reconcile such a gruesome choice by developing the characters further, their relationships, their knowledge of themselves, but it just didnāt happen. beth never took accountability for the shooting, rio never took accountability for kidnapping and pressuring her, and dean never took accountability for his infidelity or faking cancer, which were the three main points of conflict that the writers shouldāve focused on resolving before ever even thinking of introducing new conflicts.
iām not saying i wanted rio to forgive beth, or that i wanted beth to forgive dean, or that i wanted any of these resolutions to happen immediately after their conflicts took place. and sure, you could say that bethās character compartmentalizes and that beth and rio arenāt good communicators and didnāt have a strong bond of trust to begin with so it wouldnāt be in character for them to discuss what happened, but thatās where character growth is supposed to come in! youāre supposed to write characters with these flaws so that they have a better version of themselves to work towards that is slowly developed as they encounter each conflict. theyāre not meant to make them into worse people until the show is entirely unbearable to watch because all of that old resentment and tension is just rotting away beneath the rug itās been swept under.
itās not a creative choice to have characters directly create conflict and then never address it again while they move onto the next big thing -- itās lazy writing, and it makes it crystal clear that they were written in solely to shock the viewers and create tension between the characters, not to cultivate growth, and that is very frustrating when you have a group of characters whose inherent morality is constantly insisted upon.
whatās especially frustrating about this is that it not only means there is a lack of depth to all the characters, but thereās a lack of value to the ones that the writers did not favor. based on the season one storyline that culminated in rio shooting dean and letting beth live -- essentially getting even with her in a way that didnāt involve killing off the protagonist, even though that wouldāve been the most likely course of action based on the consequences that other disposable characters suffered (i.e. eddie) -- itās my belief that the writers didnāt expect to keep rio on the show past season one (honestly, it kind of feels like they didnāt even expect to get another season, based on how messy the storyline felt as the seasons progressed), and therefore didnāt value rioās character the way the audience came to by season two.Ā
when i say the writers didnāt (and honestly, i still think they donāt -- not in the same way they value the girls, dean, stan, or even fucking boomer) value him, i mean they didnāt see him as being worth the effort of giving a character arc, a background story, personal relationships, etc. they threw in marcus at the start of season two to be likeĀ āheās a dad! that means he has depth!ā and then never really touched on it again. there was like, one other scene with marcus that i can remember, and then he, too, was sidelined until they needed to humanize rio again after he got shot. all of the other kids -- the bolands, sarah, harry, and ben -- are regularly featured because they are a driving component of the womenās motivation to survive and succeed. with rio, his kid is only used to relate him back to the women, to make him seem human for a moment, but marcusās real value as a character lies in how he makes beth feel as she grieves rio, not how he contributes to rioās behavior, motivation, and overall character.
and yes, i know that rio is technically a side character, that the children of the protagonists are going to have more development, but if they actually wanted to add depth to rioās character through the facet of parenthood, they wouldāve shown more than one interaction with him after he spent supposed months away from him without a word. that kid wouldāve been traumatized by that, and seeing rioās reaction to his kid mourning his disappearance wouldāve provided a much more real and interesting angle than them all smiling and happy, like weāve seen in every other scene with him and marcus. it wouldāve showed that the writers care about rioās pain, about how his absence affected those he loves, but to be blunt, they donāt. they showed beth grieving him when she shot him, but we didnāt see him recovering from that traumatic event. they didnāt even care enough about him to give him fake scars, for christās sake.Ā
everything that happened to rio throughout the show was either done to further the other womenās development or appease the viewers, and they made zero effort to hide that. they walked his characterization backwards so many times (him threatening bethās family when it had been insinuated thus far that that was the only line he wouldnāt cross; him touching her and making suggestive advances on her in exchange for bail money when she was clearly uncomfortable; him returning all of her stuff and happily accepting her as his superior when there was no development in their relationship to suggest heād forgiven her or would be receptive to her having power over him) and almost every single instance of them using him to promote the show exploited his outward appearance and the fact that so many viewers have fetishized him as thisĀ āexoticā bad boy without any regard for how minimizing and insulting that marketing tactic is.Ā
looking through their instagram, i saw no other instance of an actorās picture being posted next to a bunch of thirsty tweets or captioned as beingĀ āanother reason to watch good girls.ā itās fetishization disguised as playful, well-intentioned endorsement, but if they were really referring to rioās character rather than his appearanceĀ as a reason to watch the show, we wouldnāt be seeing his face on nearly every episode promo and highlight with him only occupying about five minutes of screen time every 50-minute episode.
thereās not really a neat bow-tie conclusion to this, but what iām getting at is that the writers wanted it both ways. they wanted the viewership and fan engagement that mannyās character garnered, but they didnāt value him enough toĀ give him the screen time and characterization that he deserved. this resulted in all of the revelations that were made about his character -- his son, rhea, his dynamic with turner, his backstory, his hobby, his grandma, nick -- feeling pretty underwhelming because they were never touched on again. they were there because they had to give us something, but they werenāt important enough to the writers to be expanded upon, to be used for personal growth or connecting with the other characters. i think thatās why it felt like such a hollow victory -- we got exactly what we wanted in theory, but there the foundation of it all was too weak for it to feel truly meaningful.Ā
we wanted rio to be acknowledged and written as a permanent fixture on the show, but instead the rest of the characters were hell-bent on getting rid of him and his primary aspect of redemption was what he meant to beth, not what he meant to the show. even in the finale when she finally came to the realization that she wonāt ever be able to give up crime, rioās role in contributing to her self-actualization was passed over by a character who has been in seven episodes, and i think that really spoke for itself the loudest in terms of how much the writers truly valued him.
Thoughts about the scene with Nick and Rio in the car? was it just me or was that an incredibly cringy I know Rio was supposed to be nervous but why was he so obvious about it? Lol I don't know sometimes Nick's and Rios relationship confuses me.
I loved it tbh. I donāt think betraying Nick was an easy decision for Rio despite it being what he wanted to do, and I loved that he was squirming both because he wasnāt able to show up for Beth when she needed him to (especially because their new partnership was so incredibly fragile), but because he couldnāt really handle being caught out. I think it emphasizes that unlike Beth, Rioās super power has never been his ability to outright lie and deceive people. Thatās why the moment that I think he most sold itāwhen he said āyou know me, I do what I have to doāāwas one where he was utilizing ambiguities while telling the truth. In this case, orchestrating Nickās downfall was what he felt he had to do for himself and for his partnership with Beth.
I talk a bit more about how I liked Rioās minimized role in Nickās downfall because of what it says about the weight of his decision and who he is as a person and how that connects him to Beth here.
Rioās failure to show up at the diner and his inability to give her a good reason BUT her choice to use the intel he provided in the envelopes is Beth giving him another chance and choosing him and trusting him to deliverā¦ just like heās been doing a with her all season.
She really just needed to know he chose her for real and then she was ALL in.
They both justā¦ let everything else go. Left it in the past in a way Beth never could with Dean.
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If someone went behind my back and conspired against me with my brother I would also kidnap their hot sister and set them up with my best friend because Iām a multitasker
