#I need more than one singular fan fiction

[ali-ali-al1]

I need to talk to strangers on the internet about The Thursday Murder Club character Chris Hudson and the accurate depiction of a very common and very miserable relationship with food that is not usually given space in media to breathe past being the butt of a joke or an unimportant detail (god fucking bless Richard Osman). I need to talk to strangers on the internet about the Thursday Murder Club. I need a fandom (if that’s still the correct terminology) how am I meant to live like this ⁉️⁉️⁉️

#the thursday murder club #please please please please please please please #I need more than millennial book reviews #I need motion #I need discourse #I need more than one singular fan fiction #if anyone has the secret key to this community please contact #richard osman

[fanhackers]

An Intimate Sound–Podfic and Confluence

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about podfic, i.e.., audio versions of fanfic, read out aloud. Podfic, as an audio-based medium, sits at the confluence of disability accessibility, performance, and of course, simply being a new form of narrative text.

In the first ever published article on podfic, Olivia Riley states:

“Audiobooks, another auditory predecessor of podfic, share podfic's emphasis on fictional narrative and vocal performance as well as other qualities typical to all the audio mediums so far discussed, including portability and ease of access. The comparison of podfic to audiobooks is particularly important because in my investigation I ran across numerous instances of listeners explicitly comparing the podfic experience to that of an audiobook, while only one referenced podcasts in relation to these audio narratives; thus, we must take into account how fans theorize their own texts and experiences.”

This particular comparison between audiobooks and podfics interests me; podcasts, whether fictional or non-fictional, arguably may be more intimate, in so much as we may get to listen to the speakers’ personal opinions, thoughts, ideas, etc. And yet, podfic finds itself standing more with audiobooks, despite sharing half its name with podcasts. I’d like to complicate this further, drawing from my own experience of both running zines with audio components, as well as interacting with fellow fans who make podfic, and who have had podfic made off their own work: fans are sometimes hesitant to provide permission to have their work read out aloud, concerned about the voice and audio work “exposing” perceived flaws in their written texts.

There’s a certain intimacy involved in the process, certainly, more than just that of getting a work beta-ed, or proof-read. It’s similar to the collaborative nature of fanart for fanfic, except fanart is welcomed with a lot less hesitance.

In the same article, Riley further goes on to explore this very intimacy:

“The audio performances of podfic produce a queer network of relations between the performer, the text, and the listener. To begin with, the text itself is an actor in podfic. All the podfics examined for this article were explicitly queer in their content, featuring queer(ed) characters, queer themes, romance, and often explicit sexuality. The characters in these podfics carry variously transformed and reimagined genders and sexualities. These podfics are palimpsests of many texts and authors, including the fan fic being read aloud, the source text the fan fic was inspired by, the contemporary fanon and fan community that shaped the fic's production, the various music and sound effects often used in these recordings, and the labor of all the creators who made these media. Further, through the reader's performance, listeners receive a unique interpretation of the fan fic being read, conveyed through the intonations and other subtleties that emphasize and elide various textual significances. This profusion of overlapping and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning impact how a listener understands a character's gender and sexuality, refusing the simplicity of heteronormative binaries.” RILEY, OLIVIA JOHNSTON. 2020. “PODFIC: QUEER STRUCTURES OF SOUND.” TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS AND CULTURES, NO. 34. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.3983/TWC.2020.1933.

There is, then, a definite sense of vulnerability in getting podfic made off one’s work. But podfic, I’d argue, is almost the most celebratory fan-object fandom has ever produced—it sits again on a confluence, not just of medium and accessibility, but of multiple creatives, all of whom have a singular contribution in making the final product. Podfic is, in many ways, a community object, more so than most fan-objects, simply by its nature of needing multiple inputs. 

What are your thoughts on podfic?

#author: shyams #fanhackers #podfic #fan studies #transformative works #gift economy #fandom

[noranb]

Dont feel pressured to respond to this as I don’t want to add to the discourse by any means, but as a counter point to the other anon, I never really got how it was ‘wrong’ to have characters who are properly aged up/consenting to be the focus of nsfw content? Cause like, it is fictional on one hand, and also, on the other, no singular entity stays a child forever. So long as they are of appropriate age and the context is there for it, it’s hard for me to find any ‘good’ reason to be against it.

I’ve seen this sort of argument destroy creators, fans and fandoms before, and it’s just not worth it honestly. people need to learn that if they’re uncomfortable with stuff that it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad or immoral and they need to just move on. People who can’t understand that distinction yet might not be ready for any sort of nsfw content in general, so I think that honestly, whatever you choose to do is fine.

People will find reason to poke and complain regardless of what you do, but I think you should do what you like and whatever makes you happy. I am sorry though that you’ve gotten negative messages about these sorts of things before, as no one should be harassed over how they ship a thing. Ever.

Anyways, wishing you a pleasant day, and know that I’ll support you regardless. I just wanted to like write and show that I understand where you’re coming from and that people will get it too, even if they don’t say anything

I agree! Like it'd be fucked up if people were to do this to real kids but fictional characters are. fictional lol their whole purpose is to tell stories through them, I don't see why that story should be contained to "sfw" content even when they're adults in it. Thanks for the support ;u;

(more asks under cut)

"they exist at the age you're depicting them just as much as they exist at the age they are in canon" <- put it in words better than I could, thank you ;o;

right, I feel like the only time this would be bad to do with existing fictional characters is if the original creator of the characters expressed that they don't want fan creations involving nsfw etc etc but hoyoverse doesn't give a crap so!!

omg kind of mind games are they playing on tumblr dot com T_T

#anon #noranasks #this will probably be the last time i speak about this unless there's some super hot take that i feel compelled to rely to #and even if i didn't reply to you directly #thank you for the supportive asks

[gerudospiriit]

[Alright, I warned you guys. Here's that juicy PSA I promised you all. It's going to cover an array of different topics that I feel need addressing and general clearing up. At least in regards to how I view things and operate here on this blog. I also hope this doesn't scare my new followers away alkjsf.]

First things first and maybe doesn't need to be said but, in case some people haven't noticed, I am pretty opinionated, and I will share my opinions here if I feel like it. However, I will never spout any negative opinions about any singular person here on this blog. I have never done it and I will never do it, explicitly or implicitly. That's not how I operate. I do my best to only give opinions and critique of general topics like overall trends in the rpc, general headcanons or fanon that are fairly widespread in the community/fandom I don't necessarily care for, and fictional characters I'm not a fan of. While I can't tell you how to take my posts, I can assure you that nothing I post here is ever, ever meant to offend or be an attack on any one person (or really be an attack at all). This goes for IC, dash commentary posts as well. I'll get to those more in a minute though.

If you don't like this kind of thing, that's perfectly fine. If you're not comfortable interacting with me because of that, it's absolutely fine. But what ISN'T fine in my book is if you take my words and posts and twist them into things they aren't or try to demonize me for nothing remotely harmful. Again, I can't control how you take my posts, but I know that I don't post anything that's inherently problematic. A hot take or unpopular opinion here and there, but again, it's nothing that's outright attacking any one person or vague blogging or being generally toxic at all. As I said, I don't attack people with my posts, but I'm not going to walk on eggshells when sharing my thoughts because some people might take them personally. I will always be careful about this and sensitive material in general. All I can say is that my posts are never meant to be personal attacks, and if you really feel one is, tell me! I would rather be able to explain myself or my mindset than end up with people thinking I'm being toxic when I'm absolutely not. That or just unfollow me. Block me. Whatever you need to do. I'm a firm believer in tailoring your own experience so if that's what you need to do, then there are no hard feelings.

Now to get into the real nitty gritty of this post: a few reminders/how I generally view certain aspects that get tossed around a little too generously in the RPC. Keep in mind all of these have their own nuances, but in general, the stuff I'm going to say is usually true.

💥Mun=/=Muse and vice versa. It shocks me that I need to talk about this in 2023 but I guess it bears repeating. My opinions are not my muse's opinions, nor are her words, opinions, and actions mine. What I say about a topic or character or anything aren't necessarily what Nabooru thinks, and what Nabooru says or thinks about a character isn't necessarily how I feel about them.

Additionally, I will not take anything said IC or OOC about Nabooru personally, and no one else should take anything negative said about their muses as a personal attack. I understand we love our muses, but it's absolutely paramount to not take one character or mun (within reason) saying something we don't like about our characters as a sleight to ourselves as real people. Just like in real life, some muses won't like our muses. Some muns might not like our (canon) characters in general. But if we, the muns, constantly take offense to our muses being disliked in any way, we're all just going to be miserable. Obviously there will always be caveats to this--like someone specifically targeting YOUR iteration of your muse or your OC--because sometimes, people are just being assholes. But in most cases, it's not that deep.

💥 Dash Commentary/Not All Muses Are Nice On a related note, in character dash commentary is just that: the character making commentary about things happening on the dash. Once again, even if the commentary is one muse being shady about another, it's very, very likely not a personal attack on YOU the MUN, and it's best to remember once again that muse does not equal the mun. Dash commentary is meant to simply allow characters to comment on the events of the dash and potentially strike up interactions. It should not be taken personal by the muns.

It's good to also remember that not all muses are nice. Some are flat out evil and cruel. Not all of them will like your muse. That's what makes roleplay fun and interesting. Muns should not be demonized and penalized because they play a muse that isn't always the easiest to get along with. My advice to you is that, if you don't want interactions that aren't all sunshine in rainbows, don't follow blogs with muses that are rougher around the edges.

Also, I would make it clear in your rules that you're not open for any kind of confrontational of confrontational adjacent threads. If it's not for you, it's totally okay! We're all here to have fun. But it's better to be honest about it up front than to have someone's muse come to yours with beef.

💥 "Vague Blogging" Accusations of harmful "vague blogging" has honestly become a pet peeve of mine. I've seen it thrown around willy nilly and it's really just insane to me. In my experience and what I've observed with other people, on occasion, the term "vague blogging" gets tossed around any time someone is offended by another person's post, even if it is a general opinion about something general someone saw--that might not have even been the offended person's post!- and wanted to comment on. While I understand there is absolutely times where people ARE being toxic and are "vague blogging" specific people to be passive aggressive, more often than not, I've seen people call a simple opinion post that doesn't jive with theirs "vague blogging." I've seen someone saying they disagree with a take called "vague blogging." If we let simple internet commentary and disagreement get labeled as "vague blogging," we might as well say that everything on the internet, especially social media sites, is just all "vague blogging" other people. That voicing your opinion about something on the internet is just "vague blogging" the person who you disagree with. And I think most of us have been online long enough to understand how ludicrous that is.

In truth, most "vague blogging" that gets called out is basically just internet dialogue, and we need to be more mindful about calling innocent opinions, whether it seems based on something you said or not, "vague blogging," especially in a negative sense, when it's harmless. People should be able to express their opinions and disagree with other people if they want to without being accused of vague blogging and demonized. In fact, we should probably get rid of the term vague blogging altogether because it's too vague (heh) and broad and invites this kind of paranoia that isn't helpful to anyone. If someone is being mean or toxic, that should just be what it is. We don't need a technical term for it.

And I get it. Someone expressing their disagreement moments after you can feel like a personal attack (and sometimes, it might be). But I think that's the crux here: a "vague blog" has to be an actual attack on the PERSON making the comment over attacking the TOPIC itself (a good thing to remember in general tbh). Which, with how internet lingo is can be difficult to pick out; being Generally Mean in a Joking Way is just kind of normal. So I get why it can be easy to jump to an accusation of someone being an ass, but we need to either do better about picking it out and not calling every post disagreeing with us "vague blogging" OR start getting better about communicating with people when we DO think it has happened (and not on anon, either).

A few examples from how I understand vague blogging:💢OP: *makes a post about how much they love Ze.lda in B.reath of the W.ild and her growth in the memories*Not "Vague Blogging": I'm not a fan of how Ze.lda was portrayed in B.reath of the W.ild. I know a lot of people like her, but this iteration just wasn't it for me. "Vague Blogging"/ Potentially Problematic: Only childish morons like Ze.lda in B.reath of the W.ild. She needed to grow up and so do you. 💢OP: *posts about how they can't stand Gan.ondorf and wishes Nin.tendo would just let him die and make another prominent villain already*Not "Vague Blogging": Gano.ndorf is a great character with a lot of subtle complexities that make him a more nuanced villain than many fans and even the writers these days give him credit for. "Vague Blogging"/ Potentially Problematic: If you want Gan.ondorf to never return to another Zelda game, you're just too stupid to see and understand how brilliant his character is.

To me, language is everything when it comes to problematic vague blogging. There really is a difference in being an ass to someone and about their post and simply expressing your opinion about it. As I said, it's hard to really pinpoint actual vague blogging versus someone just maybe passionately giving their opinion/using the internet's habit of being insulting in a joking way, but I guess I would say the best rule of thumb is what I said earlier: are they attacking you, the person, or the opinion/take/what have you? And if that's unclear and you're truly hurt by the post, talk to the person. Ask them what they meant and let them know that it felt like an attack on you as a person. Or just unfollow, block, etc. and move on.

If we want to keep labeling vague blogging as something that's ALWAYS negative and harmful, then we need to only call the stuff that's negative and harmful vague blogging. Not every opinion that doesn't jive with ours should be demonized.

💥 Which brings me to my final point: tailor your own experience. If you don't like how someone runs their blog for any reason, you're not obligated to stick around. While we should all try not to be dicks to each other, it's ultimately your responsibility to ensure you're not being exposed to content or people you don't want to be. And it should be no skin off anyone's nose if that's what someone ultimately decides. At the end of the day, we're all just here to have fun. If something someone is saying or doing makes you uncomfortable, you're not obligated to stick around. Unfollow, block, blacklist, and whatever else you need to do and move on. It's really that simple.

💥 Bonus: a person sharing their feelings is NOT manipulation probably 99% of the time. As with all of these, this isn't always the tried and true case because people suck sometimes. But people sharing how they feel about something or how something someone did to them made them feel should not be automatically branded as manipulation. Listen to each other and take into account EVERYONE'S concerns or feelings. I'm not saying every person coming into your IMs has a legitimate grievance with something you said. As I've alluded to, there is always a chance someone will take something you said differently than you intended it. Give them the space to express their concerns. And if you're on the other side, give the other person a chance to explain their meaning, apologize if needed, and come to a mutual understanding no matter how that looks. Don't lecture each other. Don't call each other names or demonize each other. Just...communicate. Like normal humans. Which I know is hard for all of us gremlins here but the lack of communication on this website is what makes it such a hellsite. We would rather jump to the worst case scenarios and slander someone across the community for what was maybe an innocent mistake or a moment of emotional weakness (we all have em) rather than just having a conversation to try and figure it out and understand each other. It's something I think we need to all work on to change.

And I think that's about all I wanted to bring attention to. At the end of the day, this is all just a dumb hellsite that we're all trying to have a semblance of fun on playing pretend. But it's also The Internet and you're going to find things and people you're not a fan of. People are going to say things we don't like. But, as much as I hate to put it this way, I think we collectively in some cases to use a bit more common sense and grow a bit of a thicker skin so we can better understand what is and isn't a personal attack and the like. If we do that, I think we'll all have a generally better time here and on the interwebs in general.

#[ ☀ ˢᵖⁱʳⁱᵗˢ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵇᵉʸᵒⁿᵈ ;; ᵒᵒᶜ ] #cw long post #idk if i said everything i wanted to #but these are just things that uh #came up recently that i feel need to be addressed. #mostly for the sake of how i understand these things and therefore how it will be viewed on this blog but #yeh here you go

[chenfordsrollisi]

Chenford Breakup

First, this post is long as hell. And second, I'm sorry if this post goes in circles a bit. My mind's a chaotic place to be. I just hope it makes some sense to others. Read more under the cut.

I feel like I'm one of a few who isn't really freaking out about Tim breaking up with Lucy. Do I like it? Definitely not. Do I want them to get back together? As soon as reasonably possible. I want both of them to get therapy and make their way back to each other.

I'm not going to hate on the actors or the characters and I ask that you respectfully do the same if you comment on my posts. I'm not saying, don't be upset. It's how you feel and it's valid. I just ask anyone who engages with me, to not be rude or a jerk if we have differing views on things.

I'm hoping the breakup doesn't last long. I'm hoping that Tim realizes he made a mistake. Not in trying to protect Lucy, but in how he went about it. He didn't give her a choice. He basically said, "I'm trying to protect you, and the best way to do that is to push you away and break up with you." Tim needs to see things from Lucy's POV. She's an adult and she can decide if she wants to risk her career and her life. He also needs to respect her and their relationship enough to be honest with her. Before anyone jumps in and says I'm ganging up on Tim, I'm not. I love Tim as a character and I love Lucy as a character. I just think that Tim needs to work on his communication skills some more. I feel like they both need therapy and I want them to get it. I want them to be happy and healthy and still in love with each other, once they both have been working on their issues for a bit.

I really hope the show gets renewed for season 7. I want to see them both get therapy. I want to see them communicate more. I want to see them happy. I want to see them in love. I want to see honesty. I want to see them working together. Laughing together. All the things that make them great as a couple and as singular characters.

I'm not going to let the breakup ruin the show for me. I watch the show mainly for Chenford. I like them as a couple and as singular characters. I like Wopez, also as a couple and as singular characters. I love Grey and his wife, and Nyla, Genny and Aaron. I don't care about most of the other characters. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not going to stop watching the show just because Chenford broke up. I used to watch General Hospital and my former favorite couple used to break up and get back together for years. I don't like the back and forth, but I'll put up with it for a short time. If the show gets renewed for season 7 and Tim and Lucy show no signs of reconciliation by the end of that season, or by the end of this season and the show gets cancelled, then I will just be done with the show.

A lot of fans are having a knee-jerk reaction to the break up right now, and are threatening to drop the show and are harassing the actors. First, it's just a TV show, get a grip. And second, Eric and Melissa are just actors. Don't harass them about fictional characters. It's ridiculous and I don't want to see a repeat of the psycho behaviors of a select few that react like some of the Olicity fandom from Arrow did, each time Oliver and Felicity broke up. This post turned out longer than I meant, and it came out preachy, which wasn't my intention, sorry. But these are my thoughts, thanks for reading.

#Chenford #The Rookie #Tim Bradford #Lucy Chen #Tucy #Tim x Lucy #Lucy x Tim

[mangokabuto]

💛💚💙💜

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

Ohhh man... I'm going to be murdered if I say "all of them" but. Well. I promise I'm not "different from the other girls" or something LMFAO I just typically can't get behind monogamous ships because they do not interest or intrigue me, usually? It takes some really compelling characters to pull it off in a way that will get me invested. And honestly, I REALLY hate in shipping fanfiction/etc where the shipped-characters-in-question are portrayed as feeling "more" for their partner (singular or plural) than the rest of the crew. I feel this way for One Piece and the strawhats specifically. Like, as soon as I see the "A missed their captain and their crew, but they realized that they missed B more" or "loved B more" I've clocked out. It's just fully not believable to me. Why does romantic always have to be more, instead of just different? This is separate from my bias as a polyamorous person, btw. I'm not fond of the idea that you HAVE to love your romantic partner MOST; Like if you're closer to your best friend than your partner then you've failed somehow?? Or like you're supposed to be less close to your friends once you have a partner?? That's insane to me. And SPECIFICALLY I think it doesn't fit these characters. If there's anyone on the crew that any of them feel "more" for than the others it's Luffy, and they ALL feel that way, and it doesn't interfere with their romantic relationships because that is silly. ...I realize this probably isn't the type of answer you were looking for, haha. For a simpler one: I don't really get the romantic chemistry behind zosan as a ship, unless they're in a polycule with other people. Which is weird, because enemies-to-lovers usually gets me! Also I don't get the romantic chemistry behind lawlu either.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

I have several favorite characters honestly, and I haven't been in the fandom long enough to know the most common opinions like that outside of some large-sweeping and very common ones. (So, it's hard for me to answer this question with Franky or Bon Clay.) So, I'll pick an example that involves two of my favorite characters (Usopp and Zoro) I feel very strongly about the platonic divorce arc (Water Seven), and I think a lot of people either don't really understand what Usopp did/was thinking, or don't really understand what Zoro did/was thinking, or both. Which sucks. "Get wrong" is a loaded term, since everyone's entitled to their own opinion/interpretation, ofc, but... I stand FIRM in my belief that if Zoro had not held the line like that, Usopp would not have been able to come back to the crew, and the crew wouldn't have survived it if he came back anyway. Zoro enforced that boundary BECAUSE he loved everyone involved, not because he "hated usopp's cowardice" or whatever the fuck. Usopp decided to leave, and Zoro held him to his word, and there is a lot of respect in that. And Usopp DID fuck up! Bad! He needed to apologize, and the Usopp fans out there who think "Usopp did nothing wrong/shouldn't have needed to apologize" need to unpack why they think so. This isn't to say Zoro and the others did everything right, either. EVERYONE fucked up there, but Usopp fucked up the most! Usopp stans I know there are few of us and we're used to him getting shit on by the fandom, but we need to accept that he really was at fault. And it's good to have a character in fiction who stumbles for understandable reasons, then pushes too far, and then is able to fix what they'd done and mend their relationships. That is a beautiful and important thing to have. (If anything, I think Usopp's apology should have been a little better, but that's just me.)

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

I could be here all day. :') I know anything is possible and different strokes for different folks, but I cannot believe THAT MANY people find Sanji and Law THAT attractive. Sanji's popularity baffled me more than law, but still. I know tattoos are hot but come on. Lets be serious. It's just us here I won't be mad tell me the truth

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

FOXY. SILVER FOX FOXY. IM IN LOVE WITH HIM DO YOU PEOPLE HEAR ME. SAYING IT LOUDER FOR THE PPL IN THE BACK, HE IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!

For my other controversial picks I also think Franky, Jinbe, Mont Blanc, Brook, Big Mom, Blackbeard, Magelllan, World from that one movie, and Borsalino are attractive but those aren't as controversial -- I've seen a couple other people be as open about them -- but no one appreciates my husband. Cowards!!

#ask game #please dont rip me to shreds for my opinions LMFAOOO /j #actually i dont care. execute me if you must I'll die a martyr /j

[simulacraswagshowdown]

simulacra swag showdown !!

hello everyone ! welcome to the simulacra swag showdown !!! you may refer to the mod [that's me !!] as neptune [he/ae/cog]

first of all, what is a simulacrum ? - simulacra OR simulacrums [singular form - simulacrum] is "an image or representation of someone or something" according to google. - by this definition, things like robots and gargoyles are simulacra ! here is the simulacrum wikipedia page if you need more help. - so basically anything "man-made" that looks like or is someone or something

now let's go over the rules ! 1. fictional characters only please !! since simulacra can range from reenactment places and statues, uhh ,, yeah ,, Don't submit them !! unless the statue is fictional. that's okay [i also meant like. real people that have like simulacra personas or something,, i hope you know what i mean] [more clarification here] 2. don't submit the same character multiple times. look i know that we love seeing our blorbos be in these brackets but please do not play dirty <3 3. yes, you CAN submit multiple characters, but one submission for one character !! i'm enabling multiple responses per user !!!! if you still submit more than one character in one form, i'm just counting the first character listed !!!! 4. if two or more characters from the same piece of media get a lot of submissions OR get an equal amount of submissions, they will have a preliminary poll to decide who gets into the main bracket. yes, this also means that there will be ONE character per piece of media. i'm sorry fellow monster high fans 5. absolutely NO harry potter. that's self-explanatory.

also i'm gonna clear something up here ,, i'd prefer it if robot submissions would be toned down ? since there are already robot tournaments happening i Feel like they would dominate the competition kind of sorta, you know ? i'm most likely going to try to put robots that haven't Won something yet

with all of that said and done, HERE is the nomination google form ! the submission deadline is on march 20, monday at 12:00am pst !

one final thing before i end this post !! frankenstein's creature / frankenstein's monster will be automatically in the bracket !

happy nominating !

inspired by the following tournaments / showdowns - @mad-scientist-showdown ; @autismswagsummit ; @alphabetbracket ; @qpr-competition ; @robot-swag-competition ; @the-ghost-games ; @graveyard-gambit-tournament ; @fashiondisastertournament ; @ultimate-poll-tournament

#[gestures to pfp] i'm hoping that someone submits frankie stein from any generation of the hit doll franchise monster high #or robecca steam !!! that would be cool too !!!!!! #by the way i'm not adding them to the bracket unless they get enough submissions . i need them to prove their worth first </3 #also notice how vocaloids are listed as simulacra. vocaloid fans you know what to do #simulacra swag showdown

[malevolent-muse]

Flame to the Torch - Chicago Fire/Torchwood Crossover Fan Fiction

In a dance between dimensions, an American firefighter finds himself in an odd encounter with the members of Torchwood Three — When Lieutenant Kelly Severide is unexpectedly pulled through time and space, a tangling of timelines ensues. An ancient artifact, shimmering flames, and Time Lord technology intersect in this enigmatic tale. 

With a packet of prawn cocktail crisps in hand, Dr Owen Harper descended into the well of his medical laboratory. Munching away, he checked the various items atop the low shelving unit. Nothing much was happening at the moment so he had time to make sure his scalpels, forceps, surgical sutures, gloves, antiseptic solution, syringes, needles, and sterile dressings were set out on the various trays and that everything was accounted for. 

Owen picked up a scalpel, still encased in plastic to keep it sterile, and examined it closely. Many of the tools he had at his disposal were multi-use items and would be sent out to be autoclaved before they were returned. Though this cut down on potential wastefulness, Owen did have his concerns that the process would eventually result in the dulling of the scalpel’s blade. 

Peering through the clear plastic, he focused on the blade. It was so clean that he could see a partial reflection in the polished steel surface. However, as he altered the angle of the blade, it no longer reflected the pale peachy hues of his skin but rather the bright sparkling flicking flame above him.

“GWEN!” Owen screeched, dropping the scalpel and immediately turning around to stare at the ceiling above him. “GWEN! GET IN HERE!”

Silent flames, alternating between blue, green, yellow, and orange simmered with unknown energy along the surface of the ceiling.

“What?!” Gwen Cooper hollered back at the doctor as she entered the room.

With a singular finger, Owen pointed upward.

Gwen gasped. 

In a flurry of footsteps, she rushed out of the room far faster than she had rushed in.

As for Owen, he didn’t dare move. His eyes transfixed on the high ceiling above him, he stood mesmerized.

-----------

“And that’s when I told him,” Lieutenant Kelly Severide said loud enough that the rest of the Firehouse 51 crew could hear him, “there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Bull,” one of the more senior members of Truck countered, taking a bite of bacon and then using the remaining portion of fried meat to point at the lieutenant. “You might say that now. But I’m telling ya, I’ve seen gaps in smoke and flame in the perfect outline of a human. If that’s not proof enough for you, I don’t know what is.”

Lieutenant Casey glanced at Herrmann. 

“This wouldn't happen to have occurred while you had your SCBA gear on, would it? Are you certain that your oxygen was all the way on?”

The rest of the crew sitting down over breakfast chuckled at this remark. 

Despite their laughter, Herrmann opened his mouth to contend with the lieutenant’s statement but was interrupted by the blaring of an alarm.

“Truck 81,” the dispatch crackled over the loudspeaker, “Squad 3. Structural Fire. 111 South Michigan Avenue.”

Bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee left abandoned, the crew of Firehouse 51 mustered a quick turnout and were out on the Chicago streets in mere minutes. With Mouch at the wheel, the team strapped in for a bumpy ride.

“Severide,” Casey said through the radio clipped to his jacket, “you know where we’re headed?”

“South Michigan,” Severide replied, the slightly altered tone of his voice sounded over the receiver. “Over by The Bean, I’m pretty sure.”

“Lots of old buildings,” Mouch muttered. “Tourists, too.”

Quickly deciding on the best way to approach the situation, Casey made his orders known.

“Mouch, Herrmann, you two run interference with onlookers and potential victims. Dispatch didn’t call for ambo so be sure to have one called in if need be. Cruz, Mills, you two get hoses running and ready. I’m going to go in with Squad and assess the situation. Got it?”

“Got it,” the truck company echoed in a nearly simultaneous reply. 

As the rig pulled up in front of the Art Institute of Chicago, horns and sirens still blaring, Casey hopped out of the truck's cab. Looking to his right, he waited for just a second as Squad pulled up behind them.

“Severide,” Casey hollered, “I’m going in with you and Squad.”

“Got it,” the fellow lieutenant replied. 

As Casey was the first commanding officer on the scene, the decision was up to him unless a captain or a chief made their way down the site. 

Hustling, their gear clanking around them, the crew ascended the many granite steps only to be greeted by a frantic member of staff as others streamed out of the building. 

“Thank goodness you’re here!” the middle-aged woman declared. “Quickly, this way.”

“Ma’am,” Severide replied, grabbing the woman’s arm and halting her from going back into the building. “You can’t go back in there.”

“But the Institute’s director, he’s in there trying to put it out!”

“We’ll get him,” Casey said. “Just tell us where we’re going.”

Her eyes and hair were both as wild as the woman was frantic. She was almost breathless as she replied, “The Bronze Age Exhibit from Wales! It’s in the special exhibition gallery. Straight across the lobby, through the Alsdorf Galleries, down to the left from there, before you hit the Modern Wing.”

“Alright,” Severide called, “you heard her. Let’s go!”

Taking the lead, Casey strode into the grand building first, with Severide by his side and the rest of Squad following behind them. As they made their way through the atrium, across stone floors, and up and down staircases, the lieutenants glanced around them, trying to assess the situation in which they were walking. Other than the few stragglers making their way out of the building and the resounding wail of the fire alarms, there was nothing that would indicate the presence of a fire.

Giving Casey a knowing look, Severide said, “I don’t even smell smoke.”

Casey shrugged, though he didn’t lessen his pace.

“Dispatched called a structure fire. This isn’t someone accidentally burning a bagel in the staff kitchen.” 

As they walked further toward the special exhibition gallery, both Casey and Severide could hear the loud hiss and whoosh of a fire extinguisher being discharged. Casey broke out into a run as he rushed towards the exhibit and crossed the threshold to find an older man in a suit  desperately using a commercial-grade extinguisher to combat the fire.

“Sir!” Casey said, pulling the man away. “I’m going to need you to exit the building. We’ll take it from here.”

“The fire won’t go out,” the man relayed. “I don’t even know how it started but that is the Mold Gold Cape. It is nearly 4,000 years old! And it is on loan to us from Cardiff. It cannot be damaged!”

“We’ll do our best, but it isn’t safe for you to be here. You need to leave.”

“I can’t,” the director replied. 

“Capp,” Severide interjected, “you want to see him out.”

“On it, Lieu,” the squad member replied.

In the moments it had taken Casey to speak with the director, Severide had crouched down and was examining the fire surrounding the white square pillar and on top of it, a glass case containing a short golden shoulder cloak. However, the artifact held none of Casey’s attention. Instead, he too was mesmerized by the flames licking along the floor. 

This fire was quiet, neither crackling nor roaring as it alternated between hues of blue, green, yellow, and orange. Odder still was the fire did not appear to be consuming the wood of the floor or even the column upon which the cape sat. And the flames sparkled as if touched by electricity.

“What are we looking at?” Casey questioned, crouching down next to Severide. “Electrical fire?”

Severide shook his head ‘no.’

“The flames make me think it’s chemical. But … feel that?” Removing his glove, the lieutenant extended his hand. “No heat. No smell either.”

“Careful, Kelly,” Casey cautioned, stepping back as he watched the flames lick out in odd intervals. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“What’s beneath this gallery?” Severide asked. “Do we know?”

“More exhibits would be my guess.”

“Welch,” Severide directed, “go investigate.”

As the squad’s ‘floater’ left the gallery, the squad’s lieutenant pulled his glove back on and eased closer to the fire.

“Severide, don’t!”

“Would you relax, Casey? I know what I’m doing. The fire is clearly contained.”

“Kelly, I have never seen a fire like this before. Ever. We should call Chief down here, and see what he has to say.”

“I’m not waiting for Boden,” Severide grumped. “I don’t need the Chief to hold my hand.”

“Then maybe I should,” Casey replied, reaching down to hold the other lieutenant and keep him from getting any closer to the flames.

“Seriously?!” Severide exclaimed, shooting Casey a glare and yanking his arm back.

The movement of pulling away from his fellow lieutenant was enough to off-balance Severide. Tipping over, he fell into the flames and disappeared completely from view.

-----------

Jack stood in the middle of the medical laboratory staring up at the flames above.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Owen,” he said, his neck craned all the way back, his hands on his hips. “The analyses from the rift manipulator all read normal. This is an anomaly, plain and simple. There’s no explaining it.” 

Now standing in the doorway, along with Gwen, Owen replied, “I don’t care about an explanation. I want it to stop."

“Jack,” Gwen called, as neither of the pair dared step all the way into the room, “come back up here. It’s not safe.”

Turning to face his team members, Captain Jack Harkness spread his arms wide and gave them a wide dimpled grin.

“What could possibly happen?”

As these words fell from Jack’s lips, a darkly dressed and yellow-banded figure fell from the ceiling. The man landed directly on the captain’s head.

“Jack!” Gwen and Owen called in unison as they rushed down the steps.

“Oooh,” the man who had fallen groaned, rolling over onto his side.

With a shooing wave of his hand, he motioned to the doctor and field agent while speaking through gasping breaths.

“Evacuate … the… premise. It’s … not … safe.”

Then, grabbing the oversized radio attached to his lapel, he pressed the call button with his protectively gloved hands.

“Casey,” he said, looking around, “do you have a copy? I think I landed on someone. Have dispatch send a bus. Casey?”

While the man made an attempt to contact his fellow associate, Owen took a few steps closer to Jack. Standing over the captain, the doctor tilted his head to the side and appraised his commanding officer’s physical condition.

“Gwen,” Owen somewhat casually remarked, “I think he snapped his neck this time.”

The man, who by this point Owen had recognized to be some sort of firefighter given the way he was dressed, sat up with a loud groan.

“Don’t touch him. I’m radioing for help and the paramedics will be here soon. You two need to evacuate.”

“Nah,” Owen remarked, looking back up at the still fire-riddled ceiling high above them. “I’m more worried about those flames than I am Jack. Give him another minute and he’ll be good as new. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“I don’t think having a doctorate in art counts, pal.”

“Oh, I’m a medical doctor.”

“What is a medical doctor doing in a museum?”

“You think this is a museum?” Gwen interjected.

The man looked over at the Torchwood field agent like she had grown a second head.

“I know where I am,” the man growled.

“And where is that?”

“The Art Institute of Chicago! Now, really, I need you two to exit the building. The floor above us could collapse at any moment.”

Gwen remarked with a sigh, “He’s fallen through an anomaly in the Rift.”

“I can see that,” Owen replied before returning his attention to the misplaced fireman. “Oi, mate. What year is it?”

A bewildered look crossed the man’s face as he answered, “2013. Why?”

“Bloody hell,” Owen cursed. Kicking at the captain’s foot, he directed his next few words in the captain’s direction. “Jack, time to wake up. Some bloke has fallen through time and space, that’s your speciality.”

“I said don’t touch him,” the firefighter said once more, dragging himself closer to the captain. Seeing the unnatural angle of Jack’s neck, the man pulled off his glove and placed two careful fingers just under the captain’s jaw. “Oh, shit,” he remarked, hanging his head.

“—eeHaaaaa!” gasped Jack, as his neck realigned itself and he sat straight up.

“Shit!” the fireman exclaimed, pulling back.

The man’s eyes were wide in both shock and amazement as he watched the Torchwood captain climb to his feet. This look turned to one of utter bewilderment as Jack turned to him and gave him a dazzling smile.

Extending his hand, Jack said, “Captain Jack Harkness, at your service. And who might you be?”

“Kelly,” the man whispered before clearing his throat. “Lieutenant Kelly Severide: Chicago Fire Department, Firehouse 51, Squad 3.”

“Well then, Kelly,” Jack replied, taking Severide’s hand and hauling him to his feet, “welcome to Torchwood Three.”

“Torchwood?”

“Ah,” Jack supplied, his smile only growing brighter, “handsome, American, but not fully ‘in the know,’ if you catch my drift. Pity.”

“But,” Severide stuttered, “you were dead. I couldn’t feel a pulse.”

“Never mind that,” Jack said, giving the fireman a hearty pat on the back. “What matters is getting you back to — Chicago — didn’t you say?”

“Yes.”

“Well with that gorgeous accent of yours, I shouldn’t have forgotten so quickly.”

Severide’s eyes darted over to Owen. Raising a finger, he pointed at Jack.

“Is he hitting on me?”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Owen’s lips as he answered, “Nah, mate. I think you were the one who hit him.”

“I was just breaking his fall,” Jack interjected, crossing his arms.

“And then you chatted him up,” Gwen supplied. 

“Can you blame me? Look at that jawline, the dappling of grey at his temples, those piercing green eyes, even that little gap between his front teeth.”

Holding up both of his hands, Kelly Severide halted the conversation on that particular topic.

“Would someone kindly tell me where in the Hell I’ve just found myself?”

“Cardiff,” Gwen supplied.

“Wales,” Owen added.

Severide’s gaze rapidly shifted between the three members of the Torchwood team before responding. 

“The Cape,” he said.

“Which cape?” Jack questioned.

“The gold one. The one the flames were surrounding.”

“You mean those flames?” Owen said, gesturing to the ceiling high above them.

“Yes,” Severide remarked, taking a few steps out from directly under them. “Those flames. They were surrounding a display holding a gold cape. I think I remember one of the staff saying they were from here.”

“The Mold Gold Cape?!” Gwen said with a gasp. “I’ve seen that. They have it at the museum here. But that thing’s like a million years old.”

“Definitely not that old,” Jack interjected. “But if it’s from the area, it could be tied to the Rift in some way. Could explain why an anomaly formed.”

“The director said it was 4,000 years old, actually. And if it’s at the museum here,” Kelly questioned, “then how could it also be at the Institute in Chicago?”

Owen looked over at the American firefighter and rolled his eyes. “Are you daft? We’ve been discussing how you fell through a rift in time and space this whole time, mate.”

“To be fair,” the captain interjected, “we did discuss his good looks as well.”

“That was just you, Jack,” Gwen griped.

“How do I get back?”

“Listen,” Jack replied to the field agent, “just because you’ve got Rhys waiting for you at home, doesn’t mean you can’t—“

“And you’ve got the tea boy,” Owen interjected.

“How do I get back?!”

“Would you do me a favour, Owen?” Jack grumbled. “His name is Ianto and he’s just as much of an asset to this time as you are. Keep that in mind the next time you mention him.”

“He’s the bloody tea boy, Jack! I’m an actual doctor!”

“WHO CARES?!” Severide bellowed, interrupting the Torchwood three. “How do I get back?”

“The way you came,” Jack said with a shrug.

“The way I came?” Severide replied, clenching his jaw. “And how the actual fuck am I supposed to get all the way back up there?!”

Lifting his chin, the firefighter stared pointedly at the ceiling high above them.

“He has a point, Jack,” Gwen said. “And anomalies don’t last long. If we want to get him back, we’d better do it quick and stop arguing over Ianto.”

Owen turned on his heel and glared at Gwen.

“I’m not arguing over Ianto. I’m just saying he’s not—“

“Still arguing over the guy!” Severide interjected. “And as much as I’ve loved dropping in on this insane situation, can we instead figure out a way to get me back through a hole in the ceiling?!”

His head cocked back, Jack stared at the flickering flames on the ceiling as he carefully moved around the lab.

“Simple, really,” he finally said. “We just need to reverse the polarity of gravity, or mavity, in the room and you will fall back through.”

“Reverse the polarity on the what?!” Owen said incredulously. 

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Jack replied, “It’s something I read in a file we nicked from UNIT’s scientific advisor back in the 70s.”

“Seriously?” Owen grumbled.

Jack laughed as he explained, “It’s an old Time Lord trick. Works every time.”

“I’m sorry,” Severide interjected. “But this is lunacy! I’ve clearly hit my head and now I’m hallucinating a group of crack-pot conspiracy nuts led by a guy that needs both suspenders and a belt to keep his pants on.”

Gwen sighed and replied, “We’re not as crazy as you think. And in Britain, we call them braces, not suspenders.”

“Who the FUCK cares?!” Severide shouted. “What I need is to wake up from this insane nightmare. Because in the last five minutes, I’ve seen a man come back from the dead, had a discussion about a historic artifact that’s in two places at once, and I’ve been subjected to whack-a-do theories about organizations that don’t exist! You know what? I’m done. I’m getting out of here!”

Brushing passed Jack, Severide headed towards one set of stairs that led back into the room of the Hub. 

Jack, quickly giving Owen a knowing look, then spun around and snagged Severide by the sleeve of his jacket.

“I can’t have you going anywhere, Kelly.”

Owen watched as the fireman turned on the captain. And, while the pair was otherwise occupied, the doctor pulled a pre-filled syringe off of the top of the low shelving unit. Glad he had checked his supplies earlier, Owen walked around until he was on the other side of their visitor.

“Yeah?” Severide replied, yanking his arm away from Jack. “And how do you plan on stopping me?”

“Like this,” Owen said, stepping forward and jabbing the needle at the base of Severide’s neck.

-----------

“Welch,” Casey all but screamed through the radio, “do you have eyes on Severide?!”

“No sir,” came the static reply over the small speaker. “I’m directly below the gallery and everything seems intact. I don’t even see flames!”

“He’s stuck in the floor cavity,” Casey said, coming to the realization in the same breath as the words fell from his lips. “Capp!”

“Here, Lieutenant,” the squad member said, coming up alongside him.

“I’m going to need you to secure a rope to an anchor point. I’m going in to get Severide and I might need you to pull us back up.”

“You sure about that?” Capp replied, handing the rope from his kit to Truck’s lieutenant. “You’re not even geared up.”

“We don’t have time,” Casey answered, taking the rope and tying it in a quick makeshift harness around his waist and thighs. “Severide isn’t down that far. I just have to get to him and haul him out. I’m worried he’s unconscious.”

“His inactivity alarm isn’t going off. So he has to be moving somehow.”

“I’m not willing to take that risk. If the fire is electrical, it could’ve short-circuited the unit,” Casey said, momentarily taking off his helmet to strap on the cone-like SCBA apparatus to his face. Turning to face Capp, Casey shouted, his voice now muffled, “Secure the line!”

As the squad member rushed to anchor the rope, Casey found himself on his elbows and knees. Crawling on his belly, the lieutenant cautiously approached the sparkling flames. 

It was true, there was no heat to the fire. However, his fingers and forearms tingled with energy but definitely not the arching, electrical kind. This was far from painful. It was just … odd.

Reaching the pillar, which displayed the golden artifact, he was finally able to find the breach in the floor. The flames around him flickered higher as Casey reached down and wrapped his arms around something heavy and solid.

“PULL! PULL! PULL!”

The rope around his waist going taut, the lieutenant found himself being dragged backward out of the flames. In his arms was his fellow lieutenant, and best friend, Kelly Severide.

“SEVERIDE!” he yelled. 

Thankfully, the other lieutenant didn’t appear to have any significant injury or even burned. Still, he was most certainly unconscious. Whipping off his mask and gloves, Casey dove his fingers beneath the layers of thick clothing to feel for a pulse. 

“Come on, Kelly, don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”

His own heart hammering in his chest, Casey closed his eyes and willed himself to calm down. Was he feeling his own heart beat or was it the pumping of Kelly’s blood through his carotid artery?

“He’s got a pulse,” the truck’s lieutenant said with a huge sigh of relief. “He’s got a pulse. Call an ambo and let’s see if we can’t get this fire out.”

“Uh… Lieu,” Capp said, pointing up towards the short white column in the center of the room, “fire’s already out. And I can’t even see the hole in the floor Severide fell through.”

Looking up, Casey replied, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

-----------

Having moved anything that wasn’t already bolted down in the room, Owen, Jack, and Gwen sat in the doorway of the medical lab.

“That was quick thinking with the injection, Owen,” Gwen said as she lazily tossed a coin into the lab and watched it fall to the ceiling.

“Simple ketamine always works when you need to rapidly sedate someone. That’s why I always have it on hand. And, speaking of hands, that thing sure did the trick.”

As he spoke his last sentence, Owen nodded to the object in the centre of the medical lab’s floor. A clear jar, within the confines of the black hexagonal outer case, contained a hand. The pale, severed appendage, suspended by bubbling, blue-tinged liquid, was seemingly unassuming (though a bit macabre).

“Like I said,” Jack replied with a grin, “Time Lord technology: it never fails.”

“Good thing it didn’t,” Gwen said, tossing another coin. “I can’t imagine it would be fun dealing with Lieutenant Kelly if he had gotten stuck here.”

“I don’t know about that. At least he was pretty to look at.”

“You sure the tea boy would like to hear you say that?” Owen said with a snort. 

“How long does it last?” Gwen quickly interrupted before the captain and doctor got into yet another argument. “The reverse polarity of the gravity, I mean.”

“I’d like to second that question, Jack,” Owen added. “When will I be getting my lab back?”

Jack, with his back leaned up against the narrow passageway of the lab’s entrance, simply shrugged his shoulders.

“Could be a while. Days even.”

Opening his mouth to argue, Owen was interrupted yet again. But this time it was not by Gwen. Instead, the pinging sound of metal striking the floor pulled the doctor’s attention back to the interior of his laboratory. 

Owen got to his feet, followed quickly by both Jack and Gwen. Ducking his head through the door frame, he didn’t dare step foot into the room just yet.

The small coins that Gwen had tossed into the room had now fallen to the floor and remained there, unmoving.

“Knew that hand would come in handy,” Jack proclaimed, pushing passed Owen and stepping into the room.

Gwen and Owen both groaned at the terrible pun.

Trotting down the steps, Jack scooped up the case and tucked it under his arm.

With a big smile, he said, “Owen, you can move everything back into your lab now. I’m pretty sure it’s safe enough now.”

“Yes, well,” Owen said, gulping down some of his unease. “Might wait until after tea. Just to be sure I don’t end up on the ceiling.”

“Fair enough,” the captain replied, jogging up the steps, Time Lord’s hand in hand. “You never know what the Rift might throw at us next.”

xxx

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#torchwood #chicago fire #kelly severide #matthew casey #jack harkness #owen harper #gwen cooper #corssover #fan fiction #fan art #malevolent muse

[saltedsnails]

I'm just worried as a result of Bumblebee becoming canon; fans of the ship are going to ignore the issues with Adam's portrayal, the complaints from queer critics regarding the build up and the very bigoted company using the ship to handwave all of its bigotry. I don't think BB fans aren't allowed to be happy, hell I was pretty pleased with the confession scene. I really just the fandom could have an open discussion about the ship without it the compalints being seen as homophobia

I’m not a fan of Bumblebee myself, in fact I don’t really ship any characters at all, because RWBY isn’t supposed to be about shipping at all! We’re supposed to be overlooking a journey about saving the world, damn it!

You really just have to love that certain fans disregard the treatment of real-life LGBT+ folks by RT in favor of their ship becoming canon.

At the end of the day, I find that pathetic.

I also didn’t like the confession execution, because they were forced to say their feelings under pressure rather than a true confession where the parties in question didn’t feel pressured. Sorry, but I don’t like when people are forced to do things when they aren’t ready to handle the outcome. Been there, done that, not a fan of it.

Also just because someone criticizes an LGBT+ ship for aspects of the writing, it’s not homophobia. Maybe the execution development sucked. Maybe the characters themselves sucked or didn’t fit well together. This isn’t just for BB by the way. It’s for every ship. Talking about elements of a ship you don’t like that has to do with an LGBT+ couple isn’t automatically homophobia. It’s just criticism, and people need to learn that.

Also a note for in general, and nothing to you specifically, more of an audience awareness PSA: Putting all of your self worth into a fictional relationship and going rabid-feral when people don’t agree isn’t a healthy thing. You desperately need to evaluate how abrasive your shipping mentality effects you and your relationship with others; both on and off the internet. If something exists on the internet, some people aren’t going to like it. And y’know what, big whoop!

Stop going after people not agreeing about a damn ship, because you’ll either a) force people out of the fandom/media-space you’re in because you’re a toxic collective which will —> provide less of an audience for the media you consume which will —> lead to a loss of revenue and eventually cancel the show production or b) make the fandom split apart into smaller sects that either don’t interact or when they do, become knuckle-dragging troglodytes spewing death threats and doxxing each other that makes even wanting to dip a singular cell of your big toes skin to experience the fandom not worth it.

To get back to the Adam and Blake thing, we missed out on so much context and development for both Blake and Adam that would’ve made their final confrontation more satisfying for the end of V5/6. Like yeah, sure it’s a “I’ve changed now and all I see is a monster”, but personally, this isn’t an emotional payoff. It’s a one-dimensional storytelling experience that’s been done a billion and a half times. The characters don’t even have much of a connection anymore because Adam and Blake interacted for like, 2 minutes at Beacon during the fall, and then the confrontation leading to Adam’s death? Like, where’s the payoff?

I don’t see it. Truly, I don’t. Both Adam and Blake had such disservices done to their characters by not providing neither context nor true attachment other than “because I said so”. While yes, it is implied, we never explore the emotional nuances of their relationship. It could’ve paid off so much more if RWBY truly cared about the connections the main girls had.

- 🐌

#snail speaks #rwde #‘nonie time 🕶️ #adam taurus #**emotional nuance isn’t a bad thing everyone!

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Just a Rogue thought...

So as I’ve been navigating my way through being an author on here in the last year+, I’ve seen many different tags, labels, descriptions, author’s notes, long diatribe-level posts, and callouts in regards to narrative styles. I admittedly feel like an old-head when I see those, because I started writing fan fiction at a time where OCs, first person, and self-insertion were all melded up into one, so the You/Reader narrative has been a huge trend for me to wrap my head around and get into. 

Heat was my first attempt at writing a Javi/F!Reader (Javi x You) story in this narrative style, but I deliberately did it as a hybrid that caters to my old-school roots - aka Querida is really a female OC that I live vicariously through. 

Now, one of the things that bugs me about You/Reader is the level of criticism I see bubble up. The biggest one is “you’re giving physical descriptions and according to said descriptions, I’m interpreting that you’re writing a white character!” or something along that line. I think this is a totally fair gripe/criticism to have if someone explicitly labels their story to be “blank slate/no physical descriptions.” However, what perturbs me at times is people assuming certain physical descriptions are strictly limited to only ONE GROUP of people. I’m a Latina. Latinos span a spectrum from light-skinned to dark-skinned - tan or fair - curly-haired or wavy or straight or full of texture. You might have more ancestral lineage to one ethnic group than another, but we’re made up of three cultures that melded into one over generations. So when I read, “You’re describing blushing which means the character is white!”? That grinds my gears. I’m not white. And while it takes a lot to make me blush - I blush!

Anyway, for anyone wondering about my writing style and what my intentions are with stories and drabbles outside of Heat: 

I will never use the label “blank slate/no description”

My You/Reader-labeled narratives that have female characters will NOT have much physical descriptors in regards to skin tone, hair or eye color

You can safely assume the heroine/OFC/Reader/You is a Latina, written by a Latina, with a nuanced background and a woven backstory that should inform her cultural upbringing - but I welcome you to conjure whatever visual you want of her

And this last one will probably be controversial to some, but I think it’s something that requires stating: Not everything has to be inclusive. Now, what I mean by this is, not everything needs to be uniquely inclusive to your singular experience. Fan fiction should be fun, evocative, thought-provoking, transformative, transporting, and entertaining, and it should speak to you - regardless of whether it represents you specifically or not.

While this has been something I’ve pondered on and off, then decided to articulate for clarity’s sake and to sound off, I hope it also helps anyone reluctant about posting their work because it isn’t fitting “the mold/trend/fad/expectations” of what fan fiction should be. It’s cool for people to have their preferences when perusing and consuming content, but this should be a space where different narrative interpretations and creative representations can have their shine.

#ROGUEFURY's rambling again... #author #fan fiction author #fan fiction authors unite #SUPPORT CONTENT CREATORS

[satanicchristiancult]

Heartstopper 7-30, and why it is that representation matters

Or: the perspective from a queer and mentally ill teen about figuring out your future and moving forward from the past, through an analysis of a singular chapter of Heartstopper

Alternatively: a queer, mentally ill teen projecting their issues and analyzing life itself through a comic about queer, mentally ill teens

Warnings: spoilers for all of the comic version of Heartstopper up until the most recent update (September 11, 2023), past self-harm, issues with self-image, and unspecified eating disorders (all of them both in fiction and in real life). (The last one isn’t really spoken about, but the topic lingers around this essay, keep that in mind).

It’s the second time I’m writing this. Bear with me. It’s long. You’ve been warned. Also, as you can see, this was written over the course of two days, and took multiple days for me to clean up and post. It’s no longer Monday 11th, so there are inconsistencies.

Today I woke up like any other Monday morning. Grabbed my phone at 5 am before getting ready for class. Today is update day for Heartstopper, as is every 1st, 11th, and 21st of each month. I looked up the chapter on Tumblr, read half of it, got ready for the day, read the rest of the update, and kept going with my day.

Usually, I wouldn’t think much about it throughout the day. I would think about it and re-read the chapter during the time between classes, or during lunch. Today was different. We’re in the middle of exam season. Today’s exam had to be done in a very small amount of time, only an hour. All of it was writing and analyzing. It’s 20% of the grade for the class. I spent 15 minutes of said exam just thinking about Heartstopper.

Here’s the thing about me. I have the tendency to fall in love with fiction. I will find something new, a book, a series, whatever, and consume all of it, engage with the fandom, consume all of it again, and repeat the whole thing until I find something new.

I engaged with Heartstopper a while after it had first been presented to me. Just like right now, it was the middle of exam season and I needed to get my mind off of things. I opened Tapas, which I often use to read things, mostly fan comics. I saw that Heartstopper was in there for free. I thought it was odd, but I was bored and tired, so I began reading.

I read the whole thing in two days, only three hours or something like that. At first, it became something like a comfort for me. A world that resembled the real world but made it its ideal version. Heartstopper presented me with a dream-like gay relationship, filled with self-discovery, varied characters, and, once again, an idealized version of the world.

It was so liberating at first. What if the world was like that? What if we didn’t have to fear people that much? What if life could be so filled with love?

Then it got dark.

Holy- then it got dark. It broke me, but I loved it. Gosh, I really did. I love stories about mental health. I love reading about how life can break a human being, but at the same time, how it can slowly and carefully put them back together. Sure, life is not perfect, and therefore, a person will never be fixed, and they will never be “how they used to be”, but life can persevere through darkness and pain. Life can get better. That’s what I chose to believe.

I’ve always related more to Charlie than to any other Heartstopper character, (aside from Tori, but she doesn’t really count as a Heartstopper character). We both struggle with similar issues, and we both deal with them in similar ways. Unhealthy coping mechanisms, baby~!

This arc of Nick trying to choose a university is significant to me, mostly because I’m having the same issues as him. I’m supposed to have figured out what I’m going to do, and I’m supposed to know where that’s going to be. I don’t know anything. I know what area I’m interested in, but that’s still not enough.

Currently, Nick is touring universities with his friends, trying to make plans for the future, while figuring out whether or not he’s willing to leave behind the people he loves for the sake of his education and personal growth.

That struck a nerve in me. I’m also terrified of leaving behind my friends, who are essentially my family. I want to be the best version possible of me. I want to have these new, meaningful, and life-altering experiences.

When I was younger, I used to think that I wouldn’t make it far. I thought that I would die young and I would be at fault for that. I found hope and comfort whenever I thought about college. I always thought/dreamed about leaving everything behind, going to the US, and living the “American Dream”. I never cared whether or not it was doable, it was my dream and it was going to happen one way or another.

Now I’m older. Somehow still alive. More bitter than before. Sadly enough, I don’t allow myself to dream about those things anymore and still believe that they can and will happen. Now, my perception of the US has been broken and I’m truly afraid of even going there.

Back to Heartstopper 7-30, Nick and the gang visit the University of Leeds. Nothing seems to particularly catch their eye, but they speak with a student, and things change.

Nick gets asked the question. That haunting question that almost seems to chase you down. “What are you thinking of studying?” Then comes the dreaded answer, “I’m still undecided.” Lucky for him, he doesn’t seem to take it in a bad way or overanalyze the situation.

How the social life is described to Nick attracts him to the university. He’s interested in the sports facilities, because he’s our rugby boy, so of course he would be. The person he’s talking to tells him that their partner is in the team, and that they are really enjoying it.

That’s the moment in which, even if isn’t consciously, Nick makes his decision. He turns around and sees a group of students playing rugby. One of them turns around and waves at them, signifying that they are the other one’s partner. The rest of the group just looks at them and smile.

They just seem to accept each other no matter what. They show affection between them and don’t even question it. That means the world to Nick. That’s everything he wants. A community. To be accepted. To be able to engage in one of his favorite activities, rugby, and not have to hide who he truly is. He sees himself as one of them. Straight up, imagines himself in their shoes, and he finally finds what he’s looking for.

A year ago, I started telling myself that I should figure things out. I went to a fair with multiple international universities that offered different programs for students from my country. At the end of the day, the dream never fully dies, I guess. I still want that god-forsaken college experience that appears in books and movies. That feeling of community. Anything.

I found this public university in the middle of nowhere, but it truly did captivate me. I don’t even remember why. Cool mascot, a nice ambiance. Good enough. I looked them up on Instagram and fell in love. Their posts were truly everything I had ever dreamed of. Community, acceptance, fun, pure joy, and happiness on that campus.

Then, what meant the most to me: an LGBTQIA2S+ organization. Queer-friendly spaces. Monthly meeting just to talk. I can’t stress enough how relevant this one was for me at first, a bingo game night with drag queens.

Where I come from, people know that you’re queer and you’re dead, honestly. You will never hear the end of it. We isolate ourselves because we know that otherwise, we’d have to fight daily just to be tolerated, to be heard. We’d have to argue why our existence is okay.

This idea of being out, the whole concept to me is wild. I genuinely never considered it a possibility. Being openly queer, alongside other openly queer people is something revolutionary in my head. I do mean it.

I understand Nick. Finally finding a place where you think that you could actually belong is such a liberating experience. The idea of “I could be there”, “I could be one of them”, “I could be myself and not have to worry”. It changes everything. It genuinely does.

I truly do hope that Nick finds himself at home in Leeds. I wish him only the best. May he figure out what he wants to do, and may he be happy doing it.

Now, time for. Charlie.

He barely even appears on this update, yet, his actions are incredibly relevant, both to his character development and to all of the people reading.

Charlie’s mental health has been all over the place, that’s something everyone who has ever interacted with Heartstopper knows. Most fans can also say that they relate to this. A pretty big amount of the fans of this saga would say that they consider themselves LGBTQIA2S+ and/or people who are currently or in the past have struggled with their mental health.

The beauty of Heartstopper is that we get to see these characters grow, not only grow older, but also grow emotionally. They get to learn about themselves. They get to battle their internal conflicts and win them.

Charlie means a lot to a lot of people. He means a lot to me. He is, in some way or another, a reflection of myself. My issues. My life. Which is really worrying, actually, but it does mean something. People relate to him. He is a good enough representation of mental health issues for people to be able to identify with him.

In this update, Charlie wants Nick to see him without his shirt on for the first time ever. This is such a big step for him. For his recovery. Charlie has many self-image issues, especially around his arms and torso. All of us readers know how hard this was for him, therefore, we know how much this moment means.

I love that it wasn’t like a gigantic revelation that was reacted to in an exaggerated manner. Nick, being Nick, just blushed heavily. He truly is the personification of ‘bi crisis’. Good for him.

Some of Charlie’s biggest insecurities, as seen in 7-13, are the fact that he’s skinny and has scars. The entirety of chapter 7 has focused on how hard this is on him, and how much it affects his daily life.

Him taking off his shirt doesn’t mean that he overcame this issues. Recovery isn’t linear. This action only means that he’s finally comfortable enough to try. That’s all that recovery really is. Trying, hoping, to get better.

As the audience, an outsider looking in, we have seen Charlie shirtless before. Something new happened this time. We saw something that we didn’t need to see, but some of us, me included, are glad we saw. We saw Charlie’s self-harm scars.

It could be stupid. It could be worthless, but it meant a lot to many of us. It meant a lot to Charlie.

Charlie finally feels confident enough with himself to show this part of him to his boyfriend. Sure, he trusts him with all of his very being. Charlie is well aware that Nick will never judge him for it, but his mind doesn’t see it that way. Charlie is in a fight of will against himself. He wants this, he truly does, but there’s a voice in his head telling him that everything could go wrong. Even if it’s illogical. Even if he knows that it is.

I love how Alice just subtly writes onto the story small details that will later on become important for the plot. They don’t even have to be really important. Them being there is enough. Every single time in which he holds onto his arm, or anyone touches that specific area, there’s always a reaction from him. Every time he feels insecure, he holds onto that specific area.

It could be because I’m an angst-loving fanfic reader/writer, but I always wanted to see those scars. It might be a morbid thought, but I really did want to. We didn’t need it, sure, but seeing them shows that they aren’t just a plot devise. We know that they aren’t only that, but it’s just one of those illogical thoughts that one might have.

Seeing them shows their severity. Seeing them shows how far Charlie has come.

To me, seeing them meant seeing someone like me in a book. On a published book. In the future, on a TV show.

It is one thing to read about it in fan fiction, in people’s blogs, on YouTube videos of people who are getting better, or anything like that. Anyone can post that. It being on something published in that way, something edited and checked by so many people, something that could be professionally translated onto other languages, something that at some point we may find in a library. It means a lot to me.

Alice Oseman’s book Loveless caused the same impact on me. My first time reading a book where there were asexual and/or aromantic characters, non-binary characters. There are people like me in media. In books. In my home country, as oddly homophobic and transphobic as it is, I can go to a bookstore and buy myself a copy of this book. It is real. I am, in fact, not faking all of this. Other people are like me.

Six years I’ve been hiding my arms from the world. I’ve spent my whole life hiding my legs, but three or four years ago I began hiding them for other reasons as well.

Six years ago someone finally asked me, in a worried tone, what happened to my arms. People had asked before, but no one ever asked as if they were concerned. Six years ago it happened for the first and only time. I haven’t worn a sleeveless shirt outside of my room in all that time. I don’t know if I ever will.

Charlie gives me hope. Maybe, one day I will. Who knows. I don’t really want to do that now, but if I ever do, I know that I could.

It is nice to see oneself represented in media. Small representation means something. A more relevant role means even more though.

As a child from a pretty ignored country, I found myself represented in Elena of Avalor, in Marco Díaz from Star vs. the Forces of Evil. Neither one of them was from my country, not even close, but it was as close as I could get.

Representation to me meant the beginning and sometimes end of the Jurassic Park movies, “Isla Nublar, 120 miles west of Costa Rica.” That island doesn’t even exist.

Nowadays, there’s an NCIS character who at some point talks about wanting to move to a beach in Costa Rica. I thought that was going to be it. She would retire, never be seen again on screen, but would still call every once in a while. I don’t regularly watch NCIS, but I pick it up randomly at times. Recently I saw that she didn’t even move to Costa Rica, so that’s that for my “representation.” I don’t know what has happened since, I mean it when I say that I don’t really know what happens on NCIS.

Representation can come in many different forms, in this case, it comes in the shape of a boy who only wants to belong somewhere, and another one finding his place, and finding comfort in his own body after struggling with it for so long.

Representation shows people that they aren’t alone. It shows how important it is to see someone like you on any type of media.

The mere acknowledgment of one’s identity or existence is an indescribable feeling. Seeing oneself in any type of media genuinely causes a great impact.

Representation is necessary, and it not only helps people feel seen, but it also teaches others about different aspects of life that they might not think about. People’s lives are different. Representation helps to put it into perspective.

-Mori (They/Xem)

#mori writes #it’s done! #it’s published! #i finally did it #well done me #you have no idea how much love I put into this #you have no idea how much this means to me #heartstopper #heartstopper spoilers #heartstopper 7-30 #Heartstopper 7-30 spoilers #how much is a short essay? #holy crap- this is a lot more #long post #essay #personal essay #heartstopper analysis #nick nelson #charlie spring #heartstopper comic #heartstopper comic spoilers #analysis #don’t you dare feed this to an AI #YOU’VE BEEN WARNED #if anyone steals this and posts it onto another site I WILL hunt you down #lgbt representation #representation matters #Mori loves analysis yet doesn't know how to write the word analysis #actually relevant life updates

[footprints-and-tea-stains]

A New Deductionist Paradigm

Sherlock Holmes and his successors are contentious points of discussion among fans seeking more than fiction. Mysteries provide thought provoking entertainment and a feeling of reassurance for nearly all who consume the genre; however, for a few it is not enough to simply consume the media presented. This uncontent viewer needs to become the superhero (or fabled detective). Unlike other kinds of fiction — as if to put gasoline on the proverbial fire — these superpowers seem tangible. Holmes may be fictional but surely his prowess can be learned. Whether it’s due to the “follow along format” of mystery or a personality trait of the viewer, there exists a cult following restlessly honing their craft of logic and deduction.

Many of these fans — which we will call “Deductionists’” — have taught themselves formal logic from a pastiche of well documented media analysis, criminology and forensic information available online, mentalist television performers, and an ever growing pool of arbitrary facts called a knowledge base. The unfortunate side effect of this inevitable approach is the deductionist gathers and processes new information through the lens of a writer, therefore producing something adjacent to fiction. On top of this complexity — which is an equally long and chaotic experience for most new deductionists — disagreements within the community creates divisions along the axis of “stage performances” versus “real deduction” separating further into Mentalists and Holmesians; which in all honesty is not always a helpful distinction. This can be uniquely difficult to sort through as a new member of the community.

However, the purpose of this blog is not to document the complexities of self driven education; it is to demystify and simplify the entire process. Deductionists' of the internet age memorize situations and series of circumstances as if drilling events in a martial art. Unfortunately they do not understand the core principles of the art they drill for, therefore learning entire swaths of information that may have been avoided altogether. The deductionist asks themselves "What does the discoloration of the fingernail mean?" but do not ask the more important and topical question "What is deduction?".

I present a new deductionist paradigm. A full knowledge base on deduction organized into one map without the situational complexities. This blog is a re-packaging of all the information I have taught myself over the past years. I will post everything I know about Holmesian deduction in the form of written lectures as if you were attending a university. After each lecture I will answer topical in a singular post. There are a few more overview posts I need to get out of the way (which I highly suggest you do not skip) and then we will go directly into the meat of deduction, beginning with formal logic.

-CM

#Sherlock #sherlock holmes #deduction #deductionist #deductive reasoning #mentalism

[irredeemabun]

Anti- and Pro-ship Spectrum

I get so ungodly tired of having to explain to people what I mean when I say I'm pro-fic/pro-ship, while at the same time having to hold my head in embarrassment at the people genuinely acting like jackasses while wearing the same label as me. Everyone is different and I've seen many different levels of both "pro-ship" and "anti-ship".

So here's my attempt at better identification for us, inspired by THIS tier list that focuses a little more on the ways people enjoy dark/taboo media rather than the beliefs about fiction that shape the discourse around it.

First, optional descriptions of mainstream and niche media for clarity:

Mainstream: Media published to a broad, wide audience through an actual company or team, giving it somewhat of a position as "standard" media and a MUCH bigger influence than niche media.

Niche: Media with an inherently limited reach by virtue of only being posted to one or several social media websites, created by one or few people and only really made for fun at the end of the day.

Obviously niche works have the potential to gain enough of an influence to earn more scrutiny, but generally in discourse, I tend to mostly see anti-shippers target singular fan works or artists with only a few hundred followers, rather than an indie product that got much bigger like Undertale.

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Now then, I broke the spectrum into 3 tiers each, with 1 being the most nuanced and 3 being the most extreme.

I tried to word them all in a neutral/unbiased way (except for the joke one at the end ofc), so that even people who don't align with me will actually find the descriptions useful.

Tier 3 Pro-shipper: A free-speech absolutist, seeing no difference in harm between propaganda and earnest art, or between RPF and purely fictional work.  The true embodiment of "fiction has no effect on reality", with the belief that even the worst, most demonstrably harmful art should never be shunned or censored, and that anyone who was influenced by media to commit horrible acts was just mentally unstable to begin with.

Tier 2 Pro-shipper: Sees a clear distinction between Invasive Fiction (propaganda and some/all RPF) and Everything Else, but doesn't bother distinguishing between mainstream and niche fiction.  Takes most criticism of media as someone "whining" or "trying to cancel" a piece of fiction, and thus tends to mock critics or call them "antis".

Tier 1 Pro-shipper: Believes that criticizing mainstream media is important because it has a far reach and the potential to influence reality if unchecked, but fan artists only reach a tiny fraction of that.  Doesn't see fanwork as immune from criticism, but merely as the least of anyone's worries, whereas mainstream work can be potentially harmful if uncritically slurped up by everyone despite botching morals (for example, homophobic implications or a badly-done abuser redemption).

Tier 1 Anti-shipper: Doesn't make immediate harsh judgements based on kinks or ships, but still believes that those with certain fictional interests must be mentally unwell and should make efforts to change, because if they were healthy, they wouldn't have such interests, and thus wouldn't feel the need to create more harmful content.

Tier 2 Anti-shipper: Sees the value in using dark fiction to cope with trauma or to explore serious topics in a mature way, but the moment it becomes arousing for the writer/reader, they are deemed a terrible person, and the content is deemed nothing but fetish work that shouldn't exist.

Tier 3 Anti-shipper: FULLY believes that people's kinks, ships, and other fictional interests directly reveal their beliefs and motivations in real life.  And even if some enjoyers of problematic media aren't literal pedophiles/abusers, they are still causing inexcusable harm by sharing their content, and they should be stopped by ANY means necessary.

Tier 3.5 (Extra) Anti-shipper: Same as Tier 3, but also "It'S bAdD tO SeXuaLiZlzE mInOR CHaRacTrs EVEN IF yOu'rE a mINoR! durrrr" -_-

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BONUS! Bullshit that often gets lumped in with Fiction Discourse and really shouldn't be:

Beyond Pro-shipping: Debates about the morality of irl incest or attraction to real minors does not belong under the "pro-ship"/"pro-fiction" umbrella because those things have nothing to do with fiction.  Please do not identify these discussions under these labels.

Groomers: are Groomers.  Nothing about the ship war affects that.  Anyone can be a predator—anti or proship, left or right, religious or not, etc.  This is irrelevant to what "side" of any debate you're on.

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Please remember that everyone is an individual and I don't want to try and shove people into boxes that don't fit them. I don't want this to become a substitute for discussion, but I just felt that the terms "pro-ship" and "anti-ship" were far too broad considering that you have "person that merely thinks we should be critical of what we consume" and "mouth-frothing puritan that harasses people over their fan art" under the same label, and now perhaps those of us on either side of the discourse that are reasonable and willing to trade perspectives can more easily wave our hands and say, "Wait! False alarm! I'm not the type of pro/anti you're thinking of, please don't shoot me on sight!" x'D

#proship #pro-ship #pro ship #profiction #pro-fiction #pro fiction #shipping discourse #antiship #anti-ship #anti ship #labels #terms #coining #proship safe #proshippers please interact #maaa #general ref #fiction is not reality #fiction affects reality #cross-tagging because this is meant to help reasonable people from both sides #please be civil #I'm tier 1 proship if anyone was wondering #also I wanna thank a lovely self-identified anti for giving me some new perspectives that definitely made this list better #he's the reason I have faith in some of you and why I want to create a bridge #profic

[lemonhemlock]

Oh no, I feel like sometimes I am not explaining myself in your ask! I’m sorry. I don’t mean that Alysmond shippers will hate her as a character, I think many people across the board are excited to see what they do with her because there are lots of possibilities. I meant more that a subset of the people who currently call themselves Alys stans, yet don’t engage with her character beyond explaining why Alysmond is the correct ship and anything else is unholy, will be complaining about her being “ruined” no matter what happens. But you are definitely right, even if she is painted very differently from the tame, sweet peasant girl vibe, as many people will also claim they love her and always wanted this story for her.

it's no problem, friend, you don't need to apologise. 🤗 i feel like we're trying to say similar things here - in my reply i meant that the evolution of this ship within fandom has been driven not so much by the character of alys as she appears in FB and TWOIAF but by this latest internet phenomenon of morality policing

alys rivers has never been a staple within the asoiaf community or a fan favourite - and that's absolutely fine & normal, as she is an episodic character in a background historical plot that's only tangentially relevant to the main series - it's more thematically-relevant, that is. sure, there were a few people who liked her after reading FB, but she only became A Thing and gained stans after the end of HOTD when fans of aemond went online and found out he has a canonical love interest.

so, because a lot of these people were mainly anti-helaemonds, they latched onto her for dear life as an instrument to bully and harass degenerate incest shippers or what-have-you. there are definitely shippers for whom alys could have had absolutely any personality and they still would have liked this pairing. if aemond had canonically become involved with any other girl from any other noble house or social class, they still would have acted in the same way.

because it's not the fictional character that needs defending from evil cheating enthusiasts. no one is making them be so nasty to other fans other than their own hang-ups and insecurities that they project in order to feel better about themselves

Anonymous asked: I think what confuses me about the reaction to a ship like helaemond is that noncanon ships have always existed in ASOIAF. They’re everywhere! So many characters, and usually someone has thought about them fucking at some point. So the singular anger towards this one ship is baffling to me. Is it just because they have canon partners? Is it because of the incest specifically (yk, in the incest family?) The cheating aspect? I don’t know. It’s a mystery for the ages. This one singular ship with a relatively small following keeps some people up at night. Sorry to send you yet another ship ask, thank you for taking the time to answer everyone 🤗 I love to read your thoughts and analysis, we are grateful you share!

perhaps it's a combination of all those things, but then again aegond doesn't seem to garner the same caustic reaction. i don't know if it's because it's a smaller ship but i have seen people admit that a reason they don't like helaemond is because they're afraid it has a fair shot of becoming canon.

which i find, again, ludicrous, bc 1) if the writers have that on their bullet list of objectives, acting like a miserable person online isn't going to influence that in any way. 2) if the writers were swayed by the popularity of one ship, then helaemond should have breached containment by now and taken a hold of the collective consciousness. and if the general public loved it to such a significant level, there's not a damn thing a handful of antis on the internet could do about it. 3) as it stands, it has a niche following. the normies have long moved on because they lead regular lives and don't talk about the same fixation daily. the idea that ryan condal is scouring twitter and tumblr to see what his fave helaemond blogs are writing (ergo it's the antis' job to silence them via ostracisation) is, again, goofy.

and now for some old related asks under the cut

[🎵 i'm sorry mama i never meant to make you cry but tonight i'm cleaning out my closet 🎵]

Anonymous asked: "I'm not an anti" either but the statement that Alys, who also gets a cloudy handful of lines in a shoddy confusing storyline that grrm wrote for his least favorite character is a "very important" character seems just a tad biased to me. You can love her and want more for her story in the show and see her role expanded (I know I do!) but to act like grrm himself wrote her as anything other than a plot device for aemond's "downfall" arc seems a bit silly. I wish she was a fully-fledged character too! Alas, her and Helaena are both not. And both hold similar levels of non-significance to the bigger picture. Hopefully we'll see the show change that.

I’m putting this old ask first up, because it’s sort of related to the one I answered above already. 

Anonymous asked: JUST LOOK I'm interested in something that not many people think about in the fandom, BUT since you started talking about possible scenes with Daemon and Alys, I REALLY want to know how she will interact with Criston hahaha Given how he is shown in the series (don't say incel, don't say that), because again, according to rumors, he felt something for her (yes, Mushroom did his job). And the fact that, for example, in Alicent he can see some kind of saint / immaculate woman / martyr, what will happen when he directly starts interacting with Alys? (no, I'm not talking about sex, but such a light flirtation, maybe?) I'm rather curious if he's going to have some sort of internal struggle to give in to temptation or not? (gods help him) And just when Criston finds out about Alys's relationship with Aemond, knowing what he experienced in a brothel at age 13 and knowing that he is engaged to Baratheon's daughter... OH BOYYY I'm just imagining a similar scene like with Sansa where she heard Lisa and Littlefinger having sex...help

Criston/Alys could honestly go in many different ways. We know from Criston’s own mouth that he engaged in a fair share of dalliances before becoming a Kingsguard, so he would know how to charm the ladies. There’s also the implications of what being forcefully celibate for such a long time would do to you – forcefully in the sense that he is obliged to abide by it becaue he wanted to be a Kingsguard first and foremost for the prestige of the position, not in the sense that he willingly wanted to give up sex. It’s fair to say that he could have easily found himself a girlfriend if celibacy weren’t a requirement for his job. So, in that sense, there could be some tension going on there if Alys starts flirting with him, just like there was with Rhaenyra. As to whether or not he gives into it, well, the books tell us he does not, but that could very well just mean that no one found out if he did. He did break his vows before with Rhaenyra. Basically, I think you could make a compelling argument for both; the writers can go with either option here.

But I don’t think he’d be very happy if Aemond were to flaunt his relationship with Alys when it jeopardizes their political and military alliance with the Baratheons, so I expect there to be tension in that regard.

Anonymous asked: I don’t know how many helaemond shippers said they did not want Alys in the show, but I find it funny that this is the ship always being accused of things over and over. It’s the same people who said helaemond fans would harass Alys’s actress, and here we are; it is the self proclaimed aemond wives making videos about how wrong Gayle Rankin is for the part. I can’t even call them alysmond shippers of course because I don’t think they care about her as a character at all. I know you have covered your own issues with casting and it’s not a one size fits all, everyone will have opinions. But when the entire video and post and tweets are about how she doesn’t look like Alys, how it should have been JBF or Eva Green or whoever, it feels redundant. I’m not surprised it’s the hardcore Aemond girlies who are coming after her, but it’s frustrating to still see this stuff blamed on people who enjoy a random crackship 🙄

Anonymous asked: The thing about all these Alys actresses, fancasts or otherwise, is that not even Emily or Katie McGrath (who seems to be the most popular fancast for her) for example would've looked old and mature enough next to Ewan (in the sense that there could've been an obvious difference regarding their characters' age based on appearance alone). He himself doesn't look like a 18 years old teenager but people tend to mainly complain about the women instead which is not very fair. I mean, if they'd wanted to highlight Alys' age in the show then they would've needed to go for a 45+ years old actress, someone who could actually look old enough to be his mother, aunt, etc. if you get what I mean. But most late 30s-early 40s years old actresses already look very youthful (younger than a medieval 40 years old) and this alone makes most of the complaints void as there wouldn't be much of a difference between them and Ewan/Aemond in order for the general audience to notice and say "ooooh the age gap is too big, that's a problem". However most of the ridiculous complaints about Gayle are simply based on her not having a conventional type of beauty like the actresses mentioned above and like most of the fan arts that have been depicting Alys as (classically beautiful face like a supermodel, big breasts, fancy dresses that a lowborn wouldn't wear or have access to and so on) making it harder for the Aemondwives and Ewanwives to self-insert into her. They've created a totally different character their minds and when the reality contradicts them, they lash out. Next time they will complain about her characterization in the show being different because it will be different than the fanon one they've been creating (and sadly a lot of antis who are team green have been contributing to this misunderstandings thanks to the ship wars they've been engaging in, pretending Alys is this or that when there's no confirmation in the text just to make their ship look better).

It's true that most late 30s – mid 40s actresses tend to look better than the average woman of the same age anyway because of beauty treatments and the like, but they face ageism in the film industry even so. Which is why casting an older actress still translates into a 45+ woman getting airtime in one of the most viewed shows, getting exposure in front of the general public, where previously maybe she found it challenging to get jobs. Especially as a romantic interest.

Now I know the public and TV executives are allergic to seeing older women in that kind of storyline, so the chances of that happening were slim, but, at the same time, I would like to point out the existence and popularity of ROMANGERRI on the same network, on air in the same year and on a well-to-do, expensive, critically acclaimed show, no less (J. Smith-Cameron is 65, btw). So it IS possible. Sometimes you have to educate your own public, not just give into demands all the time.

Anyway, I want to touch on an additional point, because I remember people in my inbox trying to convince me that Gayle looks older than her years anyway so it’s fitting she was cast (she doesn’t look old at all, she looks absolutely normal). I don’t know, either these commentators are very young and, thus, kind of divorced from what a 30-year-old looks like or people have lost touch with how regular people look like and they expect everyone to be airbrushed or something.

Anonymous asked: I never thought I'd be obsessed with prophecy in HOTD and etc, but I'm very interested in it in the series and how the writers will develop it further. I love digging into these kinds of puzzles. And very excited about what else Helaena will predict. And Alys too! Because the series shows the importance of prophecies, for example, like the same Viserys and Rhaenyra, who believe, or vice versa, Daemon, who denies it. Most likely I'm the only one, but I would really like to see some parallels between Helaena and Alys in terms of their abilities. Because in F&B, only Alys was featured as a "magic figure" with the ability to foresee. And since we now have two such figures, I would like to think that this was done for a reason. For example: we know that when Helaena speaks a prophecy, it literally comes true in the next episode, but no one believes her words and ignores her. Also, I think that it is Helaena who may predict that Aemond will die (which of course may not be true). Will it also be with Alys? In the Deadline article, she is only designated as a "healer" so far (while all her magical abilities seem to have been only rumored) I'm wondering what powers they will give her, will there be the ability to see visions? Will she also speak in riddles like Helaena or will the predictions be more clear? Will they believe her, unlike Helaena? Because I keep thinking about that moment where Alys saw WHERE Daemon but she didn't see Aemond's death and it's quite intriguing because she really didn't see EVERYTHING or there was some intent... So many questions, so few answers. All in all, I'm looking forward to how they'll tackle the subject of prophecy in 2s.

Not much to add here, it’ll be interesting to see the type of magic they decide to use with Alys. It has to be a balance between real ability but not something that makes her overpowered, otherwise they’ll only end up creating plot holes if they turn her into Dr. Manhattan. The decision to also give Helaena prophetic visions when there already was a character that could have fulfilled that niche is not something that we know how to explain with certainty before the show ends. We don’t know what their plans were or still are with Helaena and how her powers are going to interact with the plot – whether she’s just meant to be a tragic Cassandra figure or more.

A tangent about Helaena and her being a dragon dreamer here:

Anonymous asked: re: other anon: I think people overestimate Helaemond as a ship. i’m sure you’re right and at some point, someone suggested that alys might not be in the show. but i doubt it was indicative of many shippers, as that’s a large leap to take and wouldn’t make much sense story wise. i know some helaemond fans are very vocal about it, but the fandom itself is quite small. there were some gen audience fans who latched onto the idea back in the fall, but they’re long gone now. Compared even to other ships in this fandom, it’s teeny tiny. ofc we are all welcome to like and dislike whatever characters and ships we choose, but i think it’s hard to pass a judgement on a minor character who gets very little time. saying helaena does not care for her kids or her family, that she would not try to help them? as you pointed out, she doesn’t seem to understand her dreams for what they are. this could be explored in the future, or it could be left as is. who knows what they’ll choose for her.

Anonymous asked: I know you're tired of all of these but I would like to address that last anon basically implying that Helaena should just be a victim and not have a bigger role. These people do not like her at all to wish that. The show has her as the first dreamer on screen, do they think that would not be explored at all? And so what if she does take over that arc from a certain character? Are they also going to complain that Helaena, a character who by all means should rightfully have an arc and not just be fridged after a tragedy, be explored in this matter? If she is paired with Aemond, it brings her into the centre of the story. So if they really like Helaena, why do they want to see less of her? They also keep on bringing up the book when it is barebones and the accounts are hearsay. Helaena could arguably not be the beloved by smallfolk figure they think, not with how the maesters' accounts are biased. I'll never understand people complaining about Helaena's character in the show, but completely ignore the other characters being whitewashed. Sometimes I feel like these people just want Helaena to be a victim because they have to use her tragedy as a sympathy card and argument for team wars. We all know how these people react when god forbid a woman shows agency, is flawed, and has motivations.

Anonymous asked: That ask you got saying that anon can't respect and empathize with Helaena because she won't do anything to save her family despite having visions of the future reminds me of this one person from team black saying that Helaemond can't be a thing, especially on Helaena's part, because if she had truly cared about Aemond she would've told him he was going to lose an eye, so how can shippers claim she cares about him when she let that happen? It was such an insane thing to say lmao, you can't even say anything against it because it's so ridiculous. I swear this ship gets the most insane comments against it, it's sad but also funny at this point. And also the comments regarding Helaena herself keep getting more and more deranged.

The thing to keep in mind is that she is not portrayed as a prophet in the books. Nor does anyone suggest that she was via hearsay or rumours mentioned by the maesters. That was a clear addition from the writers’ side. Whether it’s clumsy or well-executed – we have to wait and see because we just don’t have enough information yet. It has to be done in some way that doesn’t modify the plot too much because a lot of things are set in stone – so to complain that she is an ineffectual prophet or that she’s useless because she doesn’t /save/ anyone… she literally CAN’T save them because the authors won’t allow it. Now I have to ask: why are people directing their ire at a fictional female character though, instead of criticising the quality of the writing? If someone doesn’t believe this is a productive writing choice or a believable adaptation change, then say so, instead of wording this complaint in a misogynistic way and using it as a vehicle to irritate her fans.

Of course, Helaena is not a real person, so her feelings will not be hurt by people excoriating her, but it’s telling how some fans are incapable of mounting a meta-textual critique, and so easily confuse the Doylist and Watsonian perspectives of analysis: Helaena doesn’t save Aemond or her children even though she has prophetic visions => she must be a bad, unfeeling, selfish person, those are her character traits (Watsonian) vs Helaena can’t save anyone because the plot points and endings are set in stone (Doylist). I’m highlighting this point because there are fans like this who will literally go to war and fight in the trenches, making fandom spaces inhospitable, because they are 100% convinced they are the depositaries of the one true text interpretation, when their own critical thinking skills are fundamentally lacking.

Anonymous asked: Hi, love your blog, especially your analysis of HotD characters. I wanted to ask your opinion about one aspect of Aemond's (and by extension, Alicent's) character that some people in the fandom love to bring up. They claim that he is a character deprived of love and that his "mommy issues" are the main reason he falls for someone like Alys. Some of them even believe that he actually has romantic feelings for his mother and that's why he chooses an older woman with a similar name??? to be his lover. And after Gayle Rankin's casting some people on Tumblr were saying that she was cast thanks to her physical resemblance to Olivia Cooke (I don't see it at all) which, according to them, was intentional because of the reason above. Personally, I disagree. First of all, Aemond's relationship with Alicent is probably the only somewhat healthy relationship in his life. Alicent is not a perfect mother, far from it, but she obviously loves and cares for him (the Driftmark incident being the strongest example and Aemond himself acknowledges this in Storm's End). Therefore, it's definitely wrong to claim that he is deprived of motherly love and that his "mommy issues" will seal his fate. Moreover, we still don't know for sure what is going on between him and Helaena, but regardless of the nature of their feelings, I do believe, based on what we've seen so far in the show, that they care about each other. Idk, I just don't buy this explanation that Alys was his replacement for Alicent and a source of an unconditional love and acceptance he never received from his family members. Also, after the scene with the brothel madam I'm not really looking forward to this relationship because of all the implications. If there is something that could at least partially explain the nature of Alysmond (and even then a lot of it remains mysterious) it should be that scene from episode 9, and not the lack of love from his mother, sister or even brother(s). I only hope we will get to see more scenes between Alicent and her children in the next season, especially before Aemond leaves KL. I'm really interested in his interactions with Alicent and Aegon after the Storm's End incident and his relationship with Helaena in general, romantic (I'm actually starting to root for Helaemond after witnessing shipper wars on SM lol) or not. Sorry if this was too long:). Thanks for your time.

Thank you for your kind words & sorry for taking so long to reply, but life happens, you know. :)) and better late than never. Now, what you’re describing in the first part is definitely alimond (aemond/alicent), which can appeal to you (or not) depending on how freudian you like your ships. Alys and Alicent are basically the same name (it’s the same root), both are brunettes (though Alicent is more of a red-head in HOTD), both MILFs. There’s material to work with. One can make it happen if one is dedicated enough of a writer. I don’t think Gayle looks like Olivia either – I think they picked her because she seems to be a versatile actress, not because of physical similarity.

That being said, I never bought the Aemond-is-not-loved interpretation. I think there was something wacky going on backstage that got translated via a pervasive lack of communication. I’ve said it before but not allowing or discouraging the child actors / young adults to keep from exchanging notes on their character with the adult actors is not good showrunning or directing. Sorry to Miguel Sapochnik, but I’m just built different. And I think that’s kind of what happened with Leo and Ewan – something just got lost in the handover. Little!Aemond is bullied by Aegon but seems very close to his mother – he confesses to her his reason for being upset and accepts being comforted by her. Alicent spends the rest of the episode trying to fix his bullying issue: she is unsuccessful with Viserys, mildly successful with Aegon (who is a scatterbrain, but seems to at least stop for a moment and consider what she has to say) and very successful with Criston, who takes it upon himself to indirectly reveal Jace and Luke’s bastardy in a public setting and to break up Aegon’s alliance with the Strong boys by siccing him on them. Not to mention the lengths Alicent goes to in Driftmark to get justice for her son – these are not the actions of a mother who couldn’t care less. So, you know. I think Ewan is a talented actor but this unconditional love line must be because the showrunners were inconsistent in the briefs they gave to the actors. Like, you would not be hearing incongruent, looney-tunes-type shit like this in Succession, where characters change their life story and personality from week to week.

#ask #anon #riverdragon #riverwitch #🎵 have you ever been hated or discriminated against?🎵 #🎵 i have. i've been protested and demonstrated against🎵

[kadoodles-on-ao3]

It seems like you have a vendetta against Shulk/Fiora. Like, not just disliking it and preferring Shulkelia but straight up hate the canon ship of the game. Why?

Thank you for asking this! It's an interesting question and I have a quite a bit to say about it (as usual with me aha). So I'll put the details under the cut, but yes, I personally do not like any aspect of the canon relationship/writing of it at all (although I don't go into that here since I talked about much more than I expected lol, if you're curious specifically about what my opinions are on the dialogue/choices in the game regarding Shiora feel free to send me another ask!). Also if you've read my fanfics (genuinely not trying to plug my work haha I swear) and see how I write Fiora and her friendship with Shulk, and especially the fic where I write from her pov for the whole thing, you can see I don't hate her and try to be respectful to her creators and fans! Anyway, for a TL;DR:

Aside from my personal history (which also is part of why I like Shulkelia as much as I do) causing the way Fiora's attraction to Shulk is written to not come off very well to me, and even ignoring what I've seen on the Internet about how people react to these ships and those who like or dislike them, it's just A Thing About Life that there will be parts of media you really like and parts of the same media you really don't, and that's what makes art engaging and impactful and personal and fun to talk about! I'm just someone who always has a lot to say about anything, so don't take my diatribes as anything more than me being passionate about analyzing stuff haha. I still love Xenoblade 1 with all my heart, and me not liking parts of the series such as Xenoblade 2 (very much) or Shiora (at all) doesn't affect how much I enjoy what I do like! It's just another fun facet to delve into for me, whether it's a thing I like or a thing I dislike.

And when all you see and know of me is from a blog that's specifically just for talking about a small facet of one piece of media, I can come off as more melodramatic about my liking of Shulkelia and disliking of Shiora since I don't talk too much about the rest of Xenoblade as a whole, nor anything else for that matter, on here. I promise I don't truly care that much about this fictional love triangle in my day-to-day life, and I'm sorry if I came off as rude about it! If you like their relationship then... I do want to say more power to you, and count this as me having said so, but also I don't feel like I need to because, as you said, it is canon so the Xenoblade devs have been (and probably will be!) providing plenty of enjoyment for you, and so no one should care what a silly singular stranger like me thinks at the end of the day haha.

But if you do, then here's what I have to say:

First off, I just enjoy really thoroughly dissecting everything I like, as well as dislike (as you will soon see!). I like delving into details and analyzing stuff, and sometimes that passion can be a little too obsessive, which can come off as me being passionate in my hatred of The Thing rather than passionate about analyzing why I hate The Thing (which is what's really going on). So it's important to me to say that when I talk about anything I dislike in depth like this, it's not ever meant to be hating on or attacking people who do like it! I just really find it fun to put things under a microscope, both when I really like them and really dislike them, because I enjoy discovering what, specifically, about them makes me feel that way.

I also think it's important to repeat that point about how this blog is both 1) meant to be near-exclusively about Shulkelia and 2) the posts I make here are pretty much my entire online footprint (outside of my fanfic account which is p much about the same topic aha), and as such these are the only things that strangers have to form an opinion about me (much like the common criticism brought up about parasocial relationships). When I log on to this blog I'm here to talk about my Xenoblade OTP or things related to it, and so that's all you see of/know about me. And even though the reason I made this blog is because of how much I like it (I'm kind of obsessive about the things I'm really passionate about, I've been that way my whole life, so that certainly doesn't help either haha), there are things I may like equally or even more, but because they aren't what this blog is for I don't mention them, and so anyone who doesn't know me won't know about them unless I talk about them. When you only see the fraction of me that I'm willing to share, then of course it'll seem like that fraction is the whole me if you never get to see the other 99%.

So much in the same way that I can seem super obsessed about Shulkelia (which, to be fair, I do get that way some days haha) it can seem like I really really hate Shiora too, since the only time I'm going to talk about it is on a blog that's dedicated to a different ship, and since I'm not really a multishipper nor do I enjoy the writing of it in canon, I won't ever have much nice to say about it. And because it's a canon ship that most people seem to enjoy, it's going to come up from time to time on art that either has Fiora/the love triangle involved or in the comments I see on it, and since I have something to say about it I do. Although I do genuinely not like it at all, I try to do it in a way where it's clear I'm not hating on people who enjoy it, either by trying to hammer home that it's just my personal opinion about it, or being super hyperbolic about disliking it in an attempt at humor. But tone and meaning can get lost from brain to text and I'm surely not the best at wording things sometimes, so I don't blame anyone for getting the wrong impression, and if that's happened I do apologize!

For example, if this blog was instead about my love of Mexican food (which is true!) and was meant for being a catalogue of recipes I come across, I'd probably talk in the tags pretty often about how I lament that so many recipes have cilantro in them because I have the weird cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene and so it tastes awful to me (which is also true!). When this happens over and over again on so many recipes that have cilantro, and when this repetition is all you ever get to see about me, it would probably seem like I have a burning hatred for cilantro, when in reality I barely think about it at all, and if something I want to eat has it I'll just politely ask for no cilantro or silently pick it off. I do think the weird gene is interesting, and I have a fun story about how I found out I have it which I enjoy telling, but I'm also just fine eating my food if no one wants to talk about it.

But that comparison isn't perfect, because there's a lot more going on in interpersonal relationships (fictional or not) and why people enjoy them or not. So let's get into that!

I did mention there were personal reasons why I feel the way I do, and to the extent I do, about these pairings, so it's only fair to explain what that's about. All throughout my life up until college I never had anyone show any romantic interest in me, even in high school, while in contrast all my friends as well as my sister had been in multiple relationships, so I felt rather lonely and figured there was something wrong with me if no one would want to date me haha. But I did of course have crushes of my own (that because of the aforementioned thought I had that I was unlikable I never acted on) and one of them was on a mutual friend that my best friend at the time also knew, as well as knew that I liked him. And all of a sudden one day they were going out and being affectionate all the time, including right in front of me even though my friend knew I liked him. That plus my loneliness from before obviously hurt really bad and made me pretty upset for a while haha.

Then on top of that later that year I would connect with someone like I never had before in my life and he "felt the same way", the very first person to ever tell me they liked me and I believed it. I honestly do still think he did like me... yet he would go on to get into a relationship with someone else and all the while repeatedly promise me that I was special to him and that she didn't get him like I did and he'd leave her for me but of course we can still have our deep talks about his personal problems and blah blah blah. There's a lot more to it than that but I'll cut it short and just say this happened for literally every single day for an entire year of my life, and it really deeply affected me for a long time, though I'm fine now of course. Well, it did change me as a human being, but you know what I mean haha. I don't say this to elicit pity (really, don't, I promise I'm fine) but to give you some puzzle pieces to help figure out the mystery of why I dislike Shiora.

So I'm sure you can see the parallels from my life to what Melia goes through, and that's precisely the mechanism that everyone uses to relate to and love fictional characters: they deal with horrible stuff that we can connect back to horrible stuff we've been through, and we empathize with them. That's one reason why so many people love Shulk (including me!), and Melia, and countless other characters. That's kind of what they're here for: to relate to. He just like me for real and all that. So, in the same way my life experiences make me relate so much to Melia, I can also relate those who I liked but never could be with to Shulk and relate their girlfriends to Fiora. And knowing how those real-life relationships ended up and why they didn't work out, I can really see parallels to how Fiora and Shulk's relationship is written, at least with the vibe I got from it on first and second impression. Therefore I both dislike it for personal reasons and the information those reasons gave me about good and bad relationships.

On a lighter note though, there's another aspect to the whole we-like-characters-we-identify-with thing with regards to shipping: I really do think the ships we like (if any) are based on and a reflection of ourselves and what we want in a partner (should we want to have one). Or in simpler terms, our OTPs are often made up of a character we can self-insert as and a character we would marry if they were real haha. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all! It's fun to make up fake scenarios with fake characters that you want to kiss, even when you're not writing direct-self-insert or xReader stuff (which I also don't bash)! I'm certainly guilty of this myself, even as much as I try to write them true to their character, relating so much to Melia and finding a lot about Shulk attractive for reasons that Melia also does means I'm just like everyone else haha. But on the other side of the coin, the fact that I cannot relate to Fiora in so many ways as well as do not vibe with how she treats her attraction to Shulk means I can't really enjoy the thought of them as a couple.

But outside of talking about the canon for just a second more, I think there's an interesting phenomenon(? idk what to call it lol) here that is in this ask as well as many other people's vocalized opinions regarding this game's love triangle: said canon. As in, the concept that someone could like Xenoblade 1 overall but dislike the canon relationship either confuses and/or upsets some people. Which is strange to me on its own, like do these people also get confused and/or mad when someone says they love hamburgers but hate when they have pickles on them? Everyone has their own tastes, and what you like or how much of it you do is just part of being an individual. (Plus I must say it's extra odd with regards to Shulkelia, as I've never seen the same comments/reactions to ships like Meliora, Shulk/Reyn, Shalvis, Dunban/Melia, etc, despite the fact that they're all equally as non-canon as Shulkelia. Maybe it's because the game firmly shoots down Shulk liking Melia so hard? But it also shows how much Fiora likes Shulk, so wouldn't Meliora [which is pretty darn popular as far as Xenoblade 1 ships go, at least from my browsing] be just as "anti-canon"?).

For extra context too, there are. SO. many friendzoned/"haha Shulk doesn't like Melia" memes and jokes out there (and if these people are so concerned with canon, it's weird how often they make Shulk and/or Melia act out of character super hard to push the joke!) which don't really exist to be pro-Shiora and more just anti-Shulkelia. I even came across a guy on reddit who would post Melia fanart every day, and so many of his posts were stalked by this one dude who would write a little rant about how Melia sucks and Fiora is the best, and would really go off if the fanart showed Melia's crush on Shulk in any way. Now he was super downvoted every time but... I've never seen anyone do that for Shulkelia. And yet I have seen quite a few posts of people complaining about Shulk/Melia fans shoving their ship in their faces and how much it sucks as a ship and I'm like i have been trying for MONTHS to find a single scrap of shulkelia content yet find barely anything and what i do find has SO many comments saying they still like shiora or that they hate the art since it's not shiora literally WHO are you talking about??? Like maybe I just am unlucky and have seen literally all 20 or whatever number of instances of Shiora fans being rude that ever existed but... they still do exist. I'm not making this up, in fact I encourage you to go out and search for Xenoblade fan content regarding this love triangle and see how people react to it! That's what I did and that's how I came across all of this!

Anyway, like was there a huge ship war in the early fandom days or something??? If so why can I find no mention of it anywhere except from salty Shiora shippers/Fiora fanboys, like barely any Shulkelia art even exists and I see zero talk from the supposed pushy Shulkelia fans? They have like 30 freaking fics in existence and half of them are Melia sulking about how Fiora is being lovey dovey with Shulk and showing they actually got together after all so don't even really count as Shulkelia fics!! In my searching for Shulkelia content I come across so many comments from people who like the ship trying to downplay their enjoyment of it and placate any potential Shiora fans reading their comments with "oh but Shulk/Fiora is cute too! i still like them together! i only like Shulk/Melia in a close friends kind of way, or just to make Melia happy idc about the ship i just like seeing her smile!" so like... What reality do these other guys live in where they got bombarded with Shulkelia over and over because I wish I lived in it!!! Something's up with some Fiora fans idk. Maybe I just had back luck in my searching, but try it yourself and see. I'm not crazy or making this up, I could just have been seeing all 20 or whatever number of Shiora's rude fans but... they do exist, and I have yet to see similar behavior from Shulkelia fans.

And this isn't all just me being a lurker looking at rando's comments as well. I even have a bit of a secondhand-experience story to tell about it! (The specific timeline of the initial details might be jumbled a bit, but I do remember the gist of it and still have the DMs to confirm some of the facts!)

I used to be active on Twitter, and I followed a lot of different Xenoblade fan artists on there. One day a certain artist posted a WIP of Melia and Shulk laying next to each other on a hill where Shulk was smiling at her, and although the artist deleted it (for reasons you will soon learn about) I think they wrote the Japanese ship name of the two on the tweet for it. Either way, I do recall before the WIP was posted they tweeted about liking Shulkelia, or rather ShuMeri as the Japanese ship name is called, (although in much the same "i like Melia so i like the thought of her being happy. Shulk belongs with Fiora though! i still ship them!" please-don't-be-mad-at-me way that I have never seen a Fiora/Shiora fan do) and wanting to draw something for it. Even though this particular artist posted in Japanese, a language I don't know 99% of, I was able to get the gist of their tweets through the translation feature and my knowledge of what the characters' names are in Japanese. And despite how hard this artist tried to be nice, tried to show how much they weren't trying to be mean to Shiora fans (they even had drawn Shiora art months earlier!), they got a wave of hate directed at them from Japanese fans which I saw in real time.

And if you doubt this because the tweets are now deleted, and because even when they were up I only read them through an A.I. translation, I felt so bad for this poor artist that I DM-ed them (regrettably in English, since I didn't trust my knowledge of Japanese to not end up making me say something I didn't intend or in a rude/informal tone) to show there was at least one other person out there that enjoyed ShuMeri and was excited to see their art. And they fortunately understood my message and knew English to message me back and told me direct quotes of what was thrown at them, which I still have in my DMs and will quote:

"'You are denying the original story. It's too unsatisfying and ugly' 'It's not right to make Shulk and Melia lovers.' someone said. At other times, people have replied to my art, complaining about Melia's behavior in the story, as I tweeted the other day. I've had a lot of negative comments about ShuMeri and Melia." (With regards to the whole "complaining about Melia's behavior in the story" thing, if I recall that was from people saying she had no right to have a crush on Shulk in the first place, which... I thought you guys said canon is sacrosanct? It is canon that Melia had a crush on Shulk, and if you don't like that then you don't respect the canon/story and aren't a real fan. Do you see how silly this sounds???)

So. Tell me if you have ever seen any Melia fans or Shulkelia fans ever behave like this. Because I sure haven't. (Like even this ask [which I am not upset about nor trying to be rude to the anon at all, on the contrary I'm super enjoying talking about this topic! it's just the dichotomy here is interesting to me!) is proof to me: how many times can you say you've seen comments on Shiora art or asks sent to Xenoblade fanblogs asking why someone doesn't like Shulkelia, do you hate Shulkelia, what's wrong with Shulkelia? Like I get one is canon and the other isn't, but like... have you seen shipping culture? Literally all of the most popular ships for any given media are non-canon, that's half the fun of shipping!!!

"Don't let mean fans sour the original work" (and again, just to make sure I'm clear, I do not consider the anon who sent this ask to be mean or rude in any way! I'm referring to other randos here!) and all that, but it's kind of hard for me to like a ship when it has fans that act like this... going around projecting by accusing fans of a different ship of their own behavior, or saying things that contradict their own points about how important canon is to them. Thinking back on how we like characters we can relate to, isn't it interesting how fans of a brash, headstrong, do-what-I-want-and-fuck-the-consequences character who gets everything she wants in canon act in a pushy or even rude way to fans of a reserved, self-reproaching, I-will-do-what-is-best-for-others-first character who has so much taken away from her, and the latter fans always defer to the former and feel guilty when they talk about liking their character even as they do so much to be nice to them? It's pretty interesting I think, it's like when dogs look like their owners or something haha.

To end this off, since even though I have more to say (which if you would like to hear please let me know!) I've talked for far too long now haha, I really want to post the rest of the DM that the artist I talked to (who to this day hasn't made another Shulkelia/Shulkelia-esque fanart again, and interestingly never gets hate on their Shalvis art which is again a non-canon "story-denying" ship, too. Maybe they just blocked the rude people and if so good for them, but it's interesting still that they haven't draw Shulkelia since):

"I think it's useless to argue about who is better, Fiora or Melia, and I don't want them to get me involved in that fight. However, I received words of encouragement from many kind followers like you. I now understand important things; 'Don't worry about mean people' and 'Draw what I like.' Fan art should be free, shouldn't it? If I draw ShuMeri, some mean people might appear again. But there are many more kind people like you. When I think of that, I'm not afraid anymore. I will try to draw ShuMeri one day. Maybe I'll get depressed again because of mean people, but then you can tell me, 'You draw fanart freely, right!'... Please tell me that. You made me feel better and made me cry with happiness. Thank you so much. :)"

-Mirim, who can be found here currently, and their old account where the drama happened is here. This is the piece of artwork they got so much hate for. Shulk and Melia aren't even touching in it and Mirim didn't even mention their ship name.

#ask #please support mirim they're a very skilled and underrated artist!! #anyway every time i get an ask i get so excited haha i really like talking to people about things i/we like #(well if i got a mean/''kys'' ask i wouldn't be excited but you get what i mean haha) #and to be clear i do not think this ask was hostile at all! and even if it was meant to be... so what? #i enjoyed answering it and i hope what i had to say was interesting and satisfied the anon's curiosity #also i *do* want to talk about other things in xenoblade i like because there's **so** much i have to say #like if you could see the size of my notes section in my voice line doc you would know. you would KNOW how much i like basically #every single thing about this game haha. probably too much. it's over 700 lines of text long #i just don't feel like there's an audience most of the time for me and it feels a little sad talking into the void haha #hence my enjoyment of getting asks of any kind! #so if anyone has any questions for me about literally anything at all please send me an ask! #in return i will write you a thesis paper about your question free of charge as you can see here lol #i really hope i didn't come off as mean or bitter here it's just there's a huge dichotomy going on with shulkelia from what i've seen #as i mentioned if it's about canonicity why don't shalvis and meliora get hate? i've literally never seen a single mean comment about them #unprompted on a random one-off comment or directly on fanworks of it #maybe it's more about melia than shulkelia since there's also a lot of hate towards her that i've seen too #in a ''ew melia fans are so conceited thinking she's the best-written character and fiora is shallow'' and it's like #congratulations! you have just encountered a ''different opinion''! perhaps they like melia because they think she is well-written and #not to spite you in particular! maybe they think fiora is shallow bc a lot of her character objectively revolves around her crush on shulk! #and it's okay to not like it! it's also okay to like it! this is what art is about: having your own thoughts on it! #it is fun to share these thoughts and i enjoy it! but i do not enjoy when people are mean to others because they like #Fake Person/Relationship A but other people like Fake Person/Relationship B! it's silly to get super mad about it and it's rude to be mean!

[thechaosmuses]

Okay so I just really need to get this off my chest and I would just like to start off by saying that I love Steve, Billy and Eddie and this is in no way hating on them because we love and adore everyone over here- I just really need to rant about this because it’s something I’ve noticed for a while lately that’s just really starting to irk me;

Everyone in the Stranger Things fandom loves all the other male characters in the show besides Jonathan. Now I know there’s people out there who do love him, just as I know that there are people out there who hate some of the other characters. But I see like almost nothing for him from fans, and again like I said I know it’s out there but there’s not nearly as much as there is for Steve, Billy and Eddie. I noticed it when I finally watched the show, and even before then I noticed it- like I barely knew who Jonathan was before I watched it.

And the main thing that people seem to wanna focus on with him (at least that I’ve seen), besides that people don’t find him conventionally attractive (which, for the love of the gods people, WAKE UP), is when he took those photos of Nancy back in SEASON ONE. Like people have such a hard time forgiving him for that and it truly baffles me as to why. Was it something he should’ve done? Hell no. You should never take unsolicited photos/videos of people, especially in a vulnerable state.

But arguably what Steve did afterwards, to both Jonathan and Nancy, was much worse than taking a few photos, which I know he made up for in more than one way and has improved so much since then. And I am in no way defending Jonathan, like I just said he should’ve never done that, but if he wasn’t there that night and hadn’t been taking photos, he never would’ve caught a photo of the demogorgon behind Barb. Which I know didn’t save her life, but it did help save Will’s and others.

Now besides that one singular incident back in the first season, Jonathan really hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just a stoner dork who loves to take photos and loves his family and friends and would go to the ends of this world and others for them. And yet fans still hate him or just seem to forget that he exists entirely. I could find so many examples of this but two that I’ve seen recently were a TikTok edit of that soldier, poet, ruler thing and someone had it as Eddie, Will, and Steve- just completely forgetting Jonathan existed and would’ve fit perfectly.

And when I read fan-fiction people are always including the fruity four, and I know that’s a big thing and I love them too, but I’ve read so many fics and none of them ever seem to include Jonathan. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that I can’t understand how people can just hate Jonathan or forget that he exists when he made one mistake. There’s also not enough Argyle love but that’s a topic for another day- though he’s not really hated on, people again just don’t find him conventionally attractive (which again, WAKE UP PEOPLE)

That's the end of the rant- thanks for coming to my Ted talk-

#[ooc; out of chaos] #[warning; rant under the cut] #[i was and am kinda nervous to post this cause i don't want anyone to think i hate the other boys] #[cause i absolutely do not; i love and adore them all]