#''i had someone tell me they shipped the pairing the author intentionally romanticizes and wants the reader to ship!!!''

[msnihilist]

idk how to tell you this, but Black Butler is made by a shotacon.

[dylanobrienisbatman]

Omg give us ur rant abt hating d*rklina as a ship.. im petty

Okay Anon, so i saw this the other day and I wasn't in the right headspace to answer but i am now!

So to start off, I am firmly in the ship and let ship category. You like a ship, i don't care. That doesn't mean i won't rag on the ship itself but I don't send hate, I don't really engage with shippers from ships I don't like, and I am liberal with the block button and the blacklist feature. Cultivate your tumblr/online experience, y'all. You don't owe anyone on this hellsite (or any other) a damn thing.

However, I REALLY do hate d*rklina as a ship, and I have a big problem with the way the shippers talk about it, so I hope you were being serious about wanting a rant because here it goes.

As for the ship itself, i feel like the reasons I dislike it are pretty obvious and standard. It's abusive. He is her abuser. He manipulates her. He spends months grooming her and gaslighting her, intentionally trying to get her under his control so that when he literally enslaves her it will go over easier. He never actually loved her, he wanted to use her for her power. It's not complicated, it's not really 'up for debate', that is the way its written, and the author has explained that that was the intended interpretation of her work. I mean he literally sexually assaults her in the second book, and straight up tells her he's going to kill everyone she loves so that she has no choice but to fall to him because she is completely alone in the world. He threatens to skin her alive in the second book when they're on the boat, he has no problem torturing her to get Mal to do what he wants. That's not love. He does not love her. It's pretty black and white, its explicitly written as an abusive relationship. The point was to show how easily powerful men can manipulate and abuse young naive women who don't know any better and try to see the best in people. Alina 'fell' for the version of Darkles Sparkles that he intentionally created to try to control her. Nothing he told her was true, from his backstory, to them both being 'the only one like [each other]' (hello, baghra), to using Genya to convince Alina that Mal had abandoned her, everything he did was manipulation so that he could get her under his control. It is not a romance, it is not 'a ship war', d*rklina is not written as romantic. He is her abuser. Full stop.

There is also the point about him being just a generally horrible person all around. He's not morally grey. He just isn't. He sold an 11 year old into sex slavery, forced her to stay in that situation so he could use her, and then mutilated her when she defied him. He also groomed and abused Zoya, because he saw that she was exceptionally powerful and wanted to use her the way he wanted to use Alina. He enslaved Alina. He blinded and mutilated his own mother. He is a genocidal maniac. He shows no remorse, he doesn't care about anyone but himself and his own power. He is not the type of character that should be romantically shipped with anyone. If you like him, that's absolutely fine! One of my fave characters ever is Kai Parker from TVD. Dude was a straight up psychopath. He tried to kill multiple pairs of toddlers. He brutally murdered his pregnant sister AT HER WEDDING. He is a HORRIBLE person. But I think he's a brilliant character. But do I think he's a good guy, do I want him anywhere near any characters in that show in a romantic way (ehem b*nkai)? Absolutely fucking not. Being a fan of a villain character is fine, but fucking own that shit. Villains can be SUCH good characters, but they're still villains. Erasing the bad they've done so you can justify putting them in situations where they WILL harm the people around them because you can't level with yourself about the bad things they've done doesn't make you 'woke', it just makes you look like you don't understand the media you're consuming.

Which leads me to why I have such a problem with the way D*rklina shippers engage with the ship. They simultaneously wanna say "oh we know it's toxic/bad/abusive/etc., that's why we like it!" and then also they try to claim that it should be endgame, they romanticize scenes where he is abusing her (and by romanticize I mean they literally try to frame his abuse as romantic, not like "oh yeah my ship is interacting!!". those are different things. You can be excited about ship interactions without trying to say that things he is doing to her are actually romantic), they try to argue that he is morally grey/misunderstood/etc., and they straight up try to lie and say he's not her abuser.

If you wanna ship an abusive ship, own it. Be straight up about why you like it. It's okay to be into dark shit, y'all. It does NOT make you a bad person to be into dark shit. But this idea that fiction doesn't impact real life, and that people can't call the ship out for what it is is a problem is a very troubling trend in fandom. Nobody is saying you can't ship it, do what you want. But this idea that these people are 'oppressed' because fans of the show/book continue to point out the facts about the way the story was written and how the relationship is actually presented is fucking insane. Someone saying that D*rklina is abusive is not calling you out, they are stating a fact. It's the story as it was presented. You trying to say it's not makes it look like you have no reading comprehension. And this idea that 'well i'll be on the lookout for evil shadow wizards in real life lol' is such horse shit too. His shadow wizard powers aren't the issue. He is a powerful man who grooms and abuses young women. You're telling me you lived through the Me Too movement and you wanna act like thats not a real threat that young women face every day? You're telling me that you can't see that the actual real life connection you're supposed to be making here? Okay, well you should maybe deal with that and come back to me, because that's an issue.

Fiction is meant to teach us lessons. Darkles is meant to teach us something. He is meant to show us that sometimes, powerful men lie to, manipulate, groom, and abuse young women, and we should be aware of that. The story is about a young woman who is sucked into an abusive situation, and then she breaks free and in the end she is able to defeat her abuser. That is a really powerful story, and one that millions of real life women can relate too. To pretend that that story doesn't have real life connections makes you look insensitive and frankly, kind of cruel.

So basically, in the end, my biggest issue is that D*rklina shippers love to spout this nonsense about 'knowing' it's bad and that he's a villain, and 'that's why they like him', and then turn around and try to say that he's not actually the villain, he's not actually bad, and the things he does to Alina that are abuse are actually romantic and sweet. You wanna ship an abusive ship, you do you, but lets not pretend it's anything other than what it is, but romanticizing and normalizing abuse tactics so you can feel, what? morally superior? Cool? edgy and different? That has real life impacts. You are normalizing abuse. Real people will engage with that rhetoric, and it will make it difficult for them to see abuse when it happens to them or the people around them because they believe its romantic or normal to be treated that way.

You wanna be a villain stan? You wanna ship dark ships? Good on ya, but fucking own your shit, y'all.

[thesickeststupidestcreep]

10 Ancient Gone Fanfics Every New Fan Needs to Read

This list is based off of the stories that left the biggest impact on me over the years that I’ve been in this fandom. Naturally, that means most of them are about the characters and concepts that I like best in the series, so expect a lot of Caina. I swear that people wrote stories that were about the Perdido Beach kids. I just didnt read as many of those, since I’ve always been a die hard Coates Kid. Additionally, I don’t really have any stories from before 2011 on the list, because that’s when I first read Gone.

10. Sunset (2014) by Yours Truly, Royalty Over Reality

Okay, I had to start off with some shameless self-promotion. I didn’t feel right putting myself any higher than number 10, but I do think that anybody who is interested in the content I put out on this blog would probably enjoy reading my old Gone fan fictions. In this Caina one shot, I tried to balance romance with angst to create a story that explores both Caine and Diana’s mental states in between Lies and Plague.

9. A Post-Apocalpytic Love Song (2013) by HalfwayDecentFanfiction

This unfinished story is only two chapters long, but both of those chapters are very good and VERY GAY. The first chapter is a wonderfully angsty story about everyone’s favorite screwed up bullies, Orc and Howard. The second chapter is a really interesting look at the relationship between Dekka and a genderbent Sam. This is a short read that does a great job portraying both one of the Gone fandom’s most popular ships and a ship you probably never would have thought about before.

8. Obsessed (2014-2015) by LadyBadass

For a long time, Drake x OC stories were the most popular type of stories in the Gone fandom. Most of them were about Mary Sues, but the main character of this story, Amber, is anything but flawless. The author intentionally portrays the relationship between her and Drake as chillingly toxic, instead of trying to over-romanticize the story by turning Drake into someone that he wasn’t. Be warned, this story is unfinished, but that just means that it ends on one of the most dramatic cliffhangers I’ve ever read.

7. The Queen and I (2011) by xCharlie-Groupiex

A heartbreaking one-shot about Caine’s feelings after Diana breaks up with him at the end of Plague. Believe it or not, this was published before Fear came out. Although, that’s hard to believe with how well the author predicted Caine would react to Diana leaving him. Even if Caina isn’t your cup of tea, I still recommend checking this story out if you want some insight into how much the entire fandom freaked out over their break up while we were waiting for Fear to come out.

6. Supremacy (2014) by Just Anny

Caine stans, consider yourselves fed. This is the Caina oneshot to end all Caina oneshots. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’m just going to say that it is gloriously sick and twisted in the most amazingly over the top way possible. If you love it as much as I think know you will, be sure to check out this author’s other Gone stories, because it was hard for me to chose just one of them for this list.

5. Akin to a Nightmare (2013) by Periwinkle Haze

For a while, “Post-FAYZ Diana” was one of the most popular topics to write about in the Gone fandom. Here’s one of my favorite stories from that genre. The author understands Diana’s character really well, and it shows in the way that they write her dialogue! The author also does a really great job giving you information on what happened to a few of the other characters in the series, while still keeping the focus on Diana.

4. Simply Giving Up (2013) by TheEldersOwner

This one shot is not for the faint of heart, but neither is Gone. So, I’m sure that you’re all going to love this. This story goes into detail about Diana’s decision to eat Panda, so you know it’s going to make you FEEL THINGS. If you enjoy this, be sure to check out this author’s other Gone stories because they’re all just as beautifully written as this one.

2. Finding Asylum (2013-2014) by Only If You Wish It

You know that a story is good when it makes you root for a pairing you typically can’t stand. I do NOT ship Driana, but OH GOD THIS STORY IS WONDERFUL. Even if the idea of Drake and Diana together as a couple seems completely impossible to you, give this fic a chance because the author really puts in the effort to make Drake into an *almost* sympathetic character while still keeping the essence of what makes him who he is.

3. Silence (2013) by Mistystarshine

Honestly, all of this author’s Gone stories are amazing, but this one stands out as one of their best even though it’s unfinished. If you like Caina at all, then you HAVE to read this story because they have tons of cute moments in it. It’s all what happens when the master manipulator loses his voice and has to learn how to get by without it. If you can’t tell from the premise, this story heavily diverges from the canon, but it’s so well written that it might have you wishing this is what had happened instead!

1. UnFAYZed (2013) by Curious Archer

Another popular genre of Gone fanfiction after the series ended was “Caine Comes Back to Life” stories. Most of them were just one or two chapters long, but this amazing author wrote a whole novel length story about what happens after Caine mysteriously shows up two years after the FAYZ ended. If you have the time, be sure to check it out, because it’s clever, emotionally impactful, and amazingly written!