#7. Transparency in shipping

[adeelseo]

Roadrunner Tracking

[lucjan]

☛ PRINTS!!🔪

[themarysuep]

Some moments where Kamala was a total mood:

1. Asking Fury and Monica why their tablets are transparent when everything is top secret.

2. Geeking out when she puts on a comm unit (and Monica saying something like baby we hear you loll)

3. Making sure to find out what SABER stands for.

4. Getting excited at Fury having 'intel' on her.

5. Dancing on Aladna.

6. Agreeing that she's totally writing fanfic after seeing Yan and Carol together.

7. The Kree hiding from her in fear and her telling them she can't fly so can she have a space ship or something.

8. Going after the SABER crew with the flerkittens.

9. Sweeping her house when there was a literal hole in the roof 😭😭😭

10. Carol saying she feels lonely and her immediately replying that she will drop high school to spend time with Carol so she doesn't feel lonely.

[zoloteh-volossya]

BG3 Fanfiction Statistics, Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my BG3 AO3 fanfic statistical analysis! In part 1, which can be found here, I discussed general fanfic data for the fandom and took a look at pairing trends for the player character, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, and Minthara. In this section, I will discuss pairing trends on AO3 for Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin, then compare all 8 main characters and talk about pairings more broadly.

Please note that the data for this analysis was gathered between July 21, 2024 and July 24, 2024. I gathered data for the top 300 ship tags in the BG3 fandom, and due to time constraints did not look at pairings with fewer than 5 fics.

I will try and be as transparent as possible when discussing how I obtained and processed this data. A copy of my spreadsheet can be found here and contains all of the tables I will be discussing for anyone who wishes to take a closer look at the data. If you don’t care about the numbers and/or my thoughts about them, feel free to skim through this post and just look at the charts!

I will be referencing the “PC” a lot in this section. See part 1 for an explanation of my methodology, but basically I combined Tav, Dark Urge, Original Character, Reader, and You into one Player Character (PC) supercategory while filtering to prevent double counting. This makes it clearer who each character is typically paired with. It also drops the number of ships from 300 to 162. Throughout this essay, I will use “ship tags” to refer to the original 300 ships that I gathered the data for and “pairings” to refer to the 162 ships that remain when I condense the player character down.

CHARACTER PAIRING STATISTICS, CONT.

In part 1, I went through Tav, the Dark Urge, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, and Minthara and took a look at who they are shipped with and their fic category (F/M, M/M, F/F, Other, Multi) breakdown. In this continuation, I will look at Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin.

ASTARION

Astarion was included in 50.2% of all fic pairings (the number of fics tagged Astarion/PC + the number of fics tagged Astarion/Gale + the number of fics tagged Astarion/Halsin and so on, divided by the total sum of all fic pairings). This percentage increased to 53.9% when otp:true was applied. This means that over half of all shipping content for BG3 on AO3 involves Astarion!

Astarion is in 7 of the top 10 ship tags and 64 of the top 300 ship tags. When I condense the pairings with the PC down, he is in 7 of the top 30 ships and 40 of the 162 total pairings. The loss of 24 ship tags comes from me having to condense down not only all his ship tags with the PC but also all his threesomes and foursomes and moresomes with the PC.

Notably, Astarion was the only BG3 character to have race specific ship tags – Astarion/Tiefling!OC (68 fics), Astarion/Half-Elf!OC (27 fics), and Astarion/Drow!OC (9 fics). These all got condensed down into the Astarion/PC supercategory as well.

Astarion/Gale is #4 and his next pairings with a non-player character are #8 Halsin and #9 Wyll. Pairings #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 16 are all just him with different tags for the player character. Condensing down all the player character tags yields us his top 20 pairings.

As expected, the player character dominates his pairings with 11,756 fics. His biggest non-PC ships are with Gale with 2,431 fics (of which an unusually high proportion are otp:true – 1,752 – almost three quarters of all his fics with Gale), Halsin with 848 fics, and Wyll with 582 fics. Ignoring the PC, he mostly seems to be shipped with men – the first canon woman to show up is Karlach at #8 with 157 fics (an order of magnitude less than Gale). He has four threesomes (Halsin/PC/Astarion, Gale/PC/Astarion, Karlach/Wyll/Astarion, Wyll/PC/Astarion) in his top 20 ships. I was surprised at how high Cazador (#6, 387 fics) was at first, but a lot of that is likely from Astarion’s backstory.

#20 was Astarion/Astarion with 15 fics, which means that Astarion is following in the proud tradition of tumblr sexymen like the Onceler before him.

As expected from looking at Astarion’s pairings in general, he has slightly more M/M (8,923 fics) shipping than M/F (7,996 fics) shipping. M/M pairings have an unusually high rate of otp:true fics – that’s mostly from Astarion/Gale. Oddly, there’s a small number (51) of F/F otp:true fics – these are either genderbends or mistags.

Looking at the pattern of pairings with the PC only, a different pattern emerges.

This time, there’s significantly more M/F fics (6,910, 58.8% of Astarion’s fics with the PC) than M/M fics (4,182, 35.6%), though the numbers are closer when you look at otp:true (46.7% M/F vs 37.6% M/M). We can infer then that it is more common to ship female player characters with Astarion than men. The Other category is significant (1,601 fics, 13.6%) and likely was used for a tag for nonbinary player characters. There’s still a bizarre 38 otp:true F/F fics.

GALE

Gale is in 19.7% of all pairings and 26.5% of otp:true pairings. He has 33 ship tags in the top 300, which drops to 23 when I condense all the player characters into “PC.”

Unlike Astarion, whose chart was completely dominated by his pairing with the PC, Gale has almost as many fics with Astarion as he does with Tav. The top pairings for Gale are primarily with the player character – #1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all just different tags for the player character (Gale/You and Gale/Reader are synonymous and so have pretty much the same number of fics). Condensing all that down yields the following chart.

There’s a stark drop off after the player character and Astarion – an order of magnitude decrease in fics (#4 Shadowheart/Gale has 111 fics, a massive drop off from 2,431 Astarion/Gale fics). And #3 is just a threesome with both the PC and Astarion. I’ve commented on it before, but Gale/Astarion has a truly unusual proportion of otp:true fics – something that indicates that there are no background pairings in most of that ship’s activity. I would not be surprised if many of those fics are modern AUs or post game fics that don’t feature the other BG3 characters much if at all.

The quartet of Astarion-Gale-Halsin-PC is prominent in Gale’s top 20 ships. All permutations of that multiship are present: #1 Gale/PC, #2 Astarion/Gale, #5 Halsin/Gale, #3 Astarion/PC/Gale, #6 Astarion/Halsin/Gale, #11 Gale/Halsin/PC, and #15 Astarion/Gale/Halsin/PC. Towards the bottom of his top 20 we start getting into his multiships with most or all of the main protagonists. This’ll be more common with the other companions – there are only 11 Astarion / Gale / Wyll / Shadowheart / Lae’zel / Karlach fics, so when these show up the list is descending into very low fic count pairings.

Looking at Gale’s fic category breakdown, M/M predominates with 3,859 fics to M/F’s 2,938 fics. Given the very high proportion of otp:true fics, we can assume that most of that is Astarion/Gale. Indeed, when we look at Gale’s ship with the player character (his only other substantial ship), we see a very different picture.

Gale’s ship with the player character has much more M/F content than his general ship content and also than Astarion. M/M content drops from 57.1% of all his fics to 30.5% of his ships with the player character, while M/F content rises from 43.5% of all his fic content to 68.1% of his fic content with the player character. ‘Other’ shipping is about 9.6% of ship content with the player character. Looking at otp:true content, a little more than half as many male player characters are shipped with Gale as female player characters.

There are, for some reason, 16 F/F otp:true fics for all of Gale’s ships and 7 otp:true F/F fics for his ship with the player character.

WYLL

Wyll is featured in 5.2% of all pairings and 5.7% of otp:true pairings, a truly stunning drop from the ~50% of Astarion and 20-26% of Gale. He is in 24 of the top 300 BG3 ships, a number that drops to 18 when I condense all the player characters into one category.

Interestingly, Astarion/Wyll outpaces Wyll/Tav as Wyll’s most popular ship. Like with Gale/Astarion, the proportion of otp:true fics for that pairing is unusually high.

When we condense all of Wyll’s player character pairings into one category, it (barely) edges out Astarion/Wyll, with 588 and 582 fics respectively (also note that no Wyll pairing has thousands of fics, unlike Gale and Astarion before him). What also happens when we condense the player characters is that Wyll does not reach a full 20 ships – he drops to 18 pairings. He has more than this, of course, but my methodology ignores all pairings with fewer than 5 fics. Therefore, Wyll’s 19th and 20th most popular pairings have 4 fics or fewer. I have represented these missing pairings with little :( emojis, because this is a sad state of affairs.

Karlach is by far Wyll’s most popular ship after Astarion and the PC, with 327 fics. The otp:true proportion is low, so it is likely often a background ship or has background ships. The next highest pairing is #4, Gale, with 54 fics. The numbers rapidly drop from there – by #6 Wyll/Lae’zel we are at 26 fics and by #14 Wyll/Karlach/Shadowheart we are down to only 10 fics.

Wyll’s pairings, like all of the male characters, tend towards M/M, with 1,010 total fics. F/M follows up with 794 and Other with 162. Much of his M/M fics come from Astarion/Wyll, as we can see when we look at Wyll’s ships with the PC.

Like Astarion and Gale before him, the proportion of M/F rises when we look at Wyll’s pairings with the player character specifically. Unlike Astarion and Gale, though, no category even comes close to breaking 1,000 fics. M/F has 357 fics (or about 60.7% of his fics total) and M/M has 224 (38.1%). With otp:true applied, M/F is 56.3%, M/M is 40.7%, and Other has 13.3%. These numbers add to more than 100%, so even on otp:true fics people are evidently tagging multiple categories. This is likely due to “Reader” fics with a generic reader.

HALSIN

Halsin is featured in 9.7% of all pairings, almost twice Wyll’s proportion. This drops to 7.9% though when you apply otp:true – a much larger drop than pretty much anyone else other than the PC. It’s likely because Halsin has a disproportionately high number of fics with threesomes, which eliminate a fic from otp:true if the threesome subrelationships are also tagged.

He is in 31 of the top 300 ship tags and 21 of the top 162 pairings.

Like every other man in this essay, Halsin’s ship with Astarion is very prominent. The first canon woman to show up is Shadowheart at #15.

As expected, Halsin/PC is easily his most popular pairing, with 1,637 fics. Astarion and a threesome with Astarion and the PC follow with quite decent fic counts of 848 and 456 respectively. The otp:true proportion for Halsin/Astarion is abnormally high. Gale and Shadowheart seem to be his other major ships. Gale/Halsin is #4 with 106 fics and Gale/PC/Halsin is #8 with 19. Shadowheart/Halsin is #6 with 36 fics and Shadowheart/Halsin/PC is #10 with 17.

The Astarion-Halsin-Gale-PC quartet shows up prominently in Halsin’s top pairings. In addition to the ships previously mentioned, Halsin/Astarion/Gale is #5 with 92 fics.

What’s notable about Halsin’s fic categories is the abnormally large number of fics tagged Multi – 1,257 fics, or 37.4% of the total. Given that he’s the poly companion, this makes sense.

Looking at Halsin with the PC specifically, the typical pattern appears. The percentage of M/M drops and M/F rises. Unlike the other characters and like his general shipping situation, the percentage of Multi fic is quite high – 32.7%.

CHARACTER COMPARISON

Now that I’ve looked at all the main characters individually, let’s take a look at how they compare to each other across a variety of metrics.

FIC RATINGS

In my individual character discussions, I didn’t talk about their relative rating proportions much, even though I was carefully tracking it. This is because all rating plots look just about the same until you compare people against each other directly.

Taking a look at all fics, I noticed a couple of things. First of all, Wyll is the companion with the least amount of horny fic written about him, with 33.4% of fics that include him in a pairing being rated Explicit. Halsin is the horniest, no surprise, with 52.8% of fics that include him in a pairing being rated Explicit – over half! Astarion has 41.2% Explicit fics while Gale has 43.6%. Amongst the women, Minthara has the highest percentage of Explicit fics (47.8%) while all three other women are within 38% – 40%.

Interestingly, the percentage of fics rated Mature remains within 22% – 26% for all companions except Minthara, who has 27.8%. The proportion of General fic is between 9% and 11% for Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart, and Karlach. Wyll has more than that, with 11.4%, while Lae’zel and Minthara have less than that with 8.4% and 5.6% respectively.

The situation does not change appreciably when I only look at fics with the otp:true condition.

FIC CATEGORIES

I have been talking about the percentage of M/F, M/M, F/F, Other, and Multi fics for each of the main characters. It’s interesting to compare them with each other. Please note, though, that in the individual character sections the percentages given were the percent of all fics for that character, and so the percentages added up to more than 100% because many fics tag several categories. In this section, the percentages given are a percent of all pairings. They therefore all add up to 100%, but it also means that fics that tag multiple categories are counted multiple times in that 100%.

The men all have more M/F than the women do (Astarion and Gale have the most while Lae’zel and Minthara have the least). Halsin, unsurprisingly, has the most Multi fic while Minthara has the least. Karlach has a surprisingly low proportion of F/F fic.

An interesting note is that the men all have less F/F fic than the women do M/M fic. This means that women are in background pairings to M/M ships or have background M/M ships in their focus fics proportionally more often than the men have background F/F ships or are in the background of F/F fics. The exception is Wyll, who has a F/F percentage close to the percentage of M/M fics in the womens’ fics.

Looking at ships with the PC specifically, some interesting patterns emerge.

Astarion, Gale, Wyll and Halsin have significantly (by more than 10%) more M/F content and less M/M content in their ships with the PC than their ships in general. Lae’zel and Minthara see a slight (less than 5%) increases in M/F and decreases in F/F as well. Shadowheart mostly stays the same. Karlach, on the other hand, sees a moderate (between 5% and 10%) decrease in M/F and increase in F/F in her ship with the PC specifically.

But remember, all these values include background pairings, and we have no way of knowing what proportion of each category actually contains the character we are interested in. So, what happens when we strip background pairings out of the equation by applying otp:true?

Wow! What a difference! Now, these values aren’t necessarily representative of all their pairings – just the ones that authors like to focus on without any background ships. Recall from the individual character analyses that often the second most popular ship after the pairing with the PC had an unusually high otp:true ratio. So we can assume, for example, that a large proportion of the M/M fics for Astarion and for Gale are from Gale/Astarion.

Every woman except Karlach is gayer than all of the men. Surprisingly, Karlach is the straightest companion by this particular metric.

Applying otp:true to ships with the PC specifically yields very different results.

Like what we saw with all ships, ships between the PC and men have significantly more M/F content than the mens’ ships generally. In this case, every man except Astarion jumps to around 50% M/F, and Astarion still jumps from 24.3% to 42.9%. The consistent pattern is that when looking at otp:true fics, M/M is preferred unless the pairing is with the player character, in which case M/F is more popular.

The conclusions for the women are not as clear cut. Karlach has more F/F and less M/F when looking specifically at ships with the PC, while Lae’zel has almost twice as much M/F when you look at her ship with the PC than her general otp:true fics – almost certainly due to the loss of Shadowheart/Lae’zel. Shadowheart experiences a significant (>10%) decline in the proportion of F/F fics, while Minthara sees a smaller one (~5%). What remains true, though, is that the majority of the player character shipping for the women is F/F.

The green bars in the chart are for the Other category, an expansive category that includes a lot of nonbinary PC shipping. You can therefore estimate how popular it is to ship each main character with a nonbinary Tav. Karlach has the most (18.6%) while Lae’zel has the least (5.2%). Everyone else is between 10% (well, 9.8% for Gale) and 12% except for Astarion who has 13.6%.

PAIRINGS

Most of both parts of this essay has been spent looking at each main character in relative isolation. But if you plot all pairings next to each other it paints a very interesting picture about each character’s relative popularity.

Astarion shows up 7 times in the top 10 ship tags and 12 times in the top 30 ship tags. The first non-Astarion ship is #4, Tav/Gale. There are no canon women in the top 10 ship tags – the first to show up is Shadowheart, at #14. Wyll does not appear until #18, in a pairing with Astarion. His pairing with Tav is #25. Lae’zel’s ship with Tav does not even make it onto this plot, at #38. Minthara is in an even worse situation – she first shows up at #60.

The results when I condense all the player character tags into “PC” are... stark.

Astarion dominates the BG3 fanfiction sphere in a way that is very surprising for a piece of media with six strong main characters. In fact, in order to actually be able to see the teeny tiny bars representing everybody else, here's a second graph with Astarion/PC excluded.

Astarion/PC is far and away the most popular ship, with 11,756 fics. Gale/PC is the second, with 3,500 – less than a third as many. Next is Astarion/Gale (2,431 fics) with an unusually high “otp:true” ratio, which indicates that it is frequently being written without any background ships. Surprisingly, Gortash/PC is fourth with 1,891 fics, followed by Halsin/PC with 1,637. Shadowheart/PC is the first woman to show up, at #6 with 980 fics. This is still 657 fics less than Halsin/PC and 911 fics less than Gortash/PC, which means that Gortash/PC is almost twice as popular as Shadowheart/PC. Astarion/PC has 12 times as many fics as Shadowheart/PC.

Karlach follows Shadowheart at #7 with 890 fics. Of the main cast, Lae’zel is next at #10 with 694 fics, and unlike every other Origin character her most popular ship is not with the PC but with Shadowheart. Wyll/PC does not make it into the top 10 ships, coming in at #11 with 588 ships. Notably, Raphael has more fics with the PC than either Lae’zel or Wyll, coming in at #9 with 745. Astarion/PC has a whopping 20 times as many fics as Wyll does and Gortash has over three times as many fics with the PC as Wyll does.

Lae’zel/PC finally shows up at #16 with 348 fics. Rolan/PC has more fics (#13, 477), and Astarion/PC has 33 times as many fics. Minthara/PC, meanwhile, is all the way down at #23 with 234 fics. Raphael, Rolan, Zevlor, the Emperor, and Haarlep all have more fics with the PC than she does. Halsin/PC has 7 times as many fics as Minthara/PC.

If you add up all the pairings each main character is tagged in, you get the following chart.

Astarion is far and away the most written about character in the BG3 fandom, followed by Gale and Halsin. If you divide these numbers by the total number of pairings, Astarion is in 50% of pairings, Gale is in 20%, and Halsin is in 10%. No other character breaks 10% - Shadowheart is in 7% of pairings, Karlach in 6%, Wyll in 5%, Lae’zel in 4%, and Minthara is in 1%.

Out of curiosity, I tallied up the numbers for Gortash as well. He appears in 6% of all pairings and 7% of otp:true pairings. This means that Gortash breaks even with Karlach and appears in more pairings than Wyll, Lae’zel, or Minthara, and if you look at otp:true he beats all the women and Wyll. This is despite Gortash having very few ships with characters outside of the PC, unlike most of the main cast who have notable secondary ships like Shadowheart/Lae’zel.

PAIRING ANALYSIS

Why am I focusing so much on pairings? Mostly because BG3 is an ensemble game – many fics will tag characters who show up for any significant length of time, even if just in the background. Therefore, if a character is tagged that is indicative that they are being included but not necessarily a sign that they are being focused on.

AO3 is a largely romance focused site (only 12% of all BG fics are categorized as General) and so characters in a pairing are more likely to be a focus of a fic. Of course this is not a hard rule, as in-depth character studies may have no pairings tagged at all or may tag a pairing that shows up in the background – but I have no way to distinguish these fics from a fic that tags a character because they show up for one paragraph. There is also the problem that many pairings are background pairings that are tagged but show up only briefly. To try and avoid that, in the following conversation, I will often be focusing on ships with the PC specifically. Fics pairing a character with the PC are especially likely to be focusing on that character and their romance and are much less likely to be a background ship than other pairings.

Looking at the data, the four most popular characters to ship with the PC – Astarion, Gale, Halsin, and Gortash – constitute the majority of fan works. Astarion, Gale, and Halsin in particular are shipped in all the possible configurations and these pairings are comparatively popular. Astarion/Gale is #3, Astarion/Halsin is #8 (above any Wyll or Lae’zel ships), Astarion/Halsin/PC is #14 (above Lae’zel/PC and all Minthara ships), Astarion/Gale/PC is #26, Gale/Halsin is #33, and Astarion/Gale/Halsin is #34.

So I did a little experiment. I went through my data and counted all the pairings that contained ONLY Astarion, Gale, Halsin, Gortash, and/or the PC. Then, I went through and counted all the pairings that weren’t in that group but did contain at least one of Astarion, Gale, Halsin, or Gortash.

Pairings containing ONLY a combination of the PC, Astarion, Gale, Halsin, or Gortash constituted 66.9% of all fic pairings in the BG3 fandom and (in a neat coincidence) also 66.9% of otp:true fic pairings. Adding in fics that involve at least one of these men with someone else ups the numbers to 73.3% of all fics and 75.0% of otp:true fics. Which means that only about a quarter of pairings do NOT include one of these four white men.

Now, it isn’t unusual for a couple of people to dominate a fandom like this. Many fandoms’ creative output primarily consist of only a couple of popular characters and their associated pairings. What is notable, though, is that BG3 is an ensemble game with 6 strong and nuanced main characters, three of whom are women, and two additional strong side characters, one of whom is a woman. But the four primary objects of fandom’s focus are 2 of the main characters, one of the side characters, and a villain.

This discrepancy is especially notable for Shadowheart and Lae’zel. For ages, when I’ve seen people bring up the relative scarcity of women in fanfic, the rejoinder is that the true culprit is the source media. Stories just don’t feature complex, interesting women with fully realized arcs, people say. There’s no narrative meat to for fandom to sink their teeth into.

This is not the case in BG3.

Both Shadowheart and Lae’zel have excellent narrative arcs that are well embedded into the game – Lae’zel has two game areas dedicated to her plotline (the creche and the astral plane) and you literally cannot progress the game past act 2 without interacting with Shadowheart’s dedicated area. The characters grapple with crisises of faith, culture clashes, and important decisions throughout the game – and who they end up becoming changes depending on the player character’s actions. This is great stuff! But it does not translate into fanfic popularity.

Lae’zel in particular is underrepresented. It’s notable that she is main character who is integrally tied into the plot and yet she is only tagged in 16% of fics – even including all the fics that merely tag her as a background character. She only appears in 4% of pairings. Her pairing with the PC comes in at #16, with 355 fics. But hey, her largest ship is with Shadowheart, so let’s look at the total number of pairings she shows up in – 1,319. Gortash/Dark Urge has 1,594 fics – that single pairing has 275 more fics than all of Lae’zel’s pairings added together. Gortash’s total pairing count is 2,052 and exceeds Lae’zel’s by almost 700 fics. Halsin’s total pairing count is over 2.5 times as large as Lae’zel’s at 3,346 fics total. Gale’s total pairing count is over five times as large, at 6,760 fics total. Oof.

Shadowheart is a bit better off – her pairing with the PC is the most popular woman at #6 with 980 fics. But this is still 657 fics less than Halsin/PC and 911 fics less than Gortash/PC, which means that Gortash/PC is almost twice as popular as Shadowheart/PC. When you take Shadowheart’s other pairings into consideration, things improve a little bit. She has 2,418 pairings total, which is about 400 more than Gortash’s total, though still over 900 fics less than Halsin’s total. But any Shadowheart/Lae’zel fan can tell you about sifting through their fics and finding that many only feature them as a background pairing for Astarion/Tav or some other more popular pairing. So let’s take a look at the otp:true numbers. Looking at otp:true fics only, Shadowheart has 765 fics and Lae’zel has 495 fics. Meanwhile, Halsin has 858 and Gortash has 800 – more than Shadowheart and much more than Lae’zel.

Neither Gortash nor Halsin really have arcs in game, though both of them do have implied arcs that happened before it. They’re interesting characters, sure, but undoubtedly Shadowheart and Lae’zel have more going on, more narrative meat to chew on. And yet, they’re completely overshadowed in fandom.

Speaking of being overshadowed, let’s talk about Wyll. Wyll is the only man in the main cast who is not particularly popular. He does not even make it into the top 10 pairings! He has fewer fics than Shadowheart or Karlach. Notably he has far far fewer fics with the PC than any other major male character and even several male villains. Gortash/PC has over three times as many fics as he does, Halsin/PC has 2.78 times as many fics as he does, and Astarion/PC has a whopping 20 times as many fics as he does. Even Raphael/PC has more fanfic! Even taking total pairings into account, Gortash still has more pairings than Wyll’s 1,770 total, while Halsin has almost twice as many.

A counterpoint that is commonly raised in this fandom is that Wyll is a boring character with less content than other Origin companions. Now, I disagree with this assessment of Wyll’s comparative boringness (I find him more interesting than Gale and much more interesting than Halsin, personally) but for the sake of this argument let’s not dispute this. The fact of the matter is that even if Wyll’s arc is half baked, Halsin has no arc at all and much less content in game. Gortash has even less content, with any potential past entanglement with Dark Urge being merely implied. Raphael doesn’t even have the implications of a past relationship with the PC, is never in a position to be in a relationship with the PC, and is canonically bad in bed to boot. And yet these men have far more fanfic with the PC than Wyll does.

I cannot help but notice that Astarion, Gale, Halsin, and Gortash are white men and Raphael presents himself as a white man.

What’s also notable is who doesn’t show up. Many minor non-player characters have quite sizable followings with a significant number of ships. Rolan, for instance, has 586 fics across 9 pairings. Zevlor has 393 ships, Dammon has 257, Kar’niss has 131, and Abdirak has 112. Other male characters that showed up on my list include Ansur (110, all with Balduran/the Emperor), Blurg (69, all with Omeluum), Vellioth (55, all with Cazador), Rugan (54), Kith’rak Voss (49), Sebastian (47, all with Astarion), Orpheus (40), Geraldus (29), Nere (22), He Who Was (21), Yurgir (18), Loroakkan (15, all with Rolan), Aradin (12), Danis (11 with Bex), Barcus (9 with the PC, not Wulbren), Petras (8 with Astarion), Guex and Ikaron (8 with each other), Franc Peartree (7 with Gortash), Lump the Enlightened (6), and Cal (6).

Meanwhile, if I eliminate Aylin and Isobel (not really “minor” NPCs), the first female minor NPC to show up in my list is Alfira with 58 fics. Nocturne follows with 57, Lakrissa with 34, Bex with 11 (all with Danis), Councillor Florrick with 8 (all with Minthara), Duke Stelmane with 8 (all with the Emperor), Kagha with 6, and Cerys with 6 (all with Rolan).

Councillor Florrick is notable because she has as much of a role in acts 1, 2, and 3 as Rolan, Zevlor, and Dammon yet she has no fics with the PC that showed up in my dataset; her only appearance is as part of a ship with Minthara. Ulder Ravenguard – a notable NPC from act 3 – never shows up at all, while Geraldus – a very minor NPC from act 3 – does. Rugan shows up but his boss Zarys never does. Neither does Roah Moonglow, who has a role in acts 1, 2, and 3 while Rugan only shows up in act 1. Araj Oblodra does not show up, but Sebastian does. Cal and Rolan show up in my dataset, but their sister Lia does not. Petras is the only vampire spawn to have over 5 of a pairing – Dalyria, who is present in all scenes where he is, does not. Alfira has the same presence in the story as Rolan (if anything, she has more), yet she shows up in less than a tenth as many fics. Vellioth, who never shows up at all, has 5 times as many fics as Viconia, who does.

The fandom has a definite trend for who gets written about, and it’s not women or Black people.

I’m not writing this to try and shame or guilt anyone. I have a dear friend who absolutely adores Astarion, and fandom acquaintances who I respect that are deeply invested in Gale, Halsin, and Gortash. And I don’t blame anyone for seeing a minor character and being intrigued enough by him to write fic. It makes sense that people are drawn to these characters – they’re really well written characters with engaging storylines. But all of the main characters in BG3 are well written, and who fandom chooses to focus on and prioritize says things about whose stories, whose lives, we pay attention to and care about.

I don’t expect this essay to change anything. Honestly, it’s mostly a primal scream of annoyance, broadcast to tumblr in hopes that other people who are annoyed by this phenomenon can find it. But it’s also a cold hard repudiation of any claim that the reason that women or Black people are underrepresented in fandom is solely due to the source material being lacking. BG3 proves that false.

[blorbologist]

S3 eps 7-9 thoughts below the cut

This is all fresh after the episode and I gotta be up in a couple hours so it won't be fully thought out but...

I love a lot of the creative choices being made! But I think many weren't implemented well, or balanced nicely.

Just! as someone who has deconstructed Campaign 1 and made deviations to the timeline of events and etc (mind you, without the same goal of condensing things for television… but somehow the show has an equivalent perc'ahlia focus to a ship-centered fic?) I think… I can see several avenues of narrative choices that would strengthen the ideas they're going with instead of weakening them.

(My credentials here are 'almost 300k canon divergent AU that converged on a handful of similar plot points to TLOVM', but also the aims of an AU fanfic =/= that of a show. I understand and respect that challenge the team faced. But when a single amateur can point out issues that would be pretty easy to solve and detract from a very enjoyable experience... there might be a Problem)

Ripley doesn't need a sob story, she's getting a book anyways leave it there. Fully agree with @/aq2003. The whole point is that she's monstrous and evil and got her PhD out of a fucking cereal box. Percy is less like her than he thinks. But he dies and she just??? escapes??? IF Percy had to die without VM being present, having Ripley either die of her wounds right after or be unable to flee and get torn to shreds by them would have been excellent.

On that note - only Vex and Cass seem to show strong emotion about his death. Keyleth's supposed to be his best friend, and he and Grog were close this season, but. Well, not like we have any platonic relationships. Everyone's just Kinda Sad.

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE OF THE MUSIC OVER PERCY'S DEATH HUH. Flashbacks to watching Vampire Diaries as a teenager and pop songs coming on over the end-of-episode drama.

Again just. All the platonic, non-familial (Pike n Grog count. to me. buddies <3) relationships are so scant, which is especially hard on characters who lean on that so hard! Grog and Keyleth especially are hurt by this. Does Keyleth have a single conversation (not quip, conversation) that isn't with Vax? And in group contexts she only loudly brings up her distrust of Raishan without any of the solid backbone it has in fact. (Also her going from Raishan was right last time we should trust her now / She betrayed us! Knew it! / oh maybe she didn't and I should apologize. girl. come on. please)

I have Concerns about 'late Game of Thrones teleportation' syndrome happening here. Scanlan goes from Wildemount back to Whitestone (which are completely different continents) with no explanation. Kash and Zahra make it to Emon (again, different continent to Issylra) just in the nick of time. Which, sure, would take a couple of days to carve Percy a nice likeness (but you have a druid who can manipulate stone right there), and if Kash and Zahra changed their minds and set out as soon as Vax talked to them they might make it! But uh. There's a lot of transport that's omitted, while the scenes give the impression everything is happening within a short period of time. And a lot of these conversations are one-on-ones with the relevant characters without acknowledging they couldn't be there without magical transport. Where is Allura or Gilmore or Keyleth in the back of these shots twiddling their thumbs 'hey can we teleport to the next person on our HELP US list'?

IDK what's going on with Kash. He's likely gonna be used as a lead-in to Something to rez Percy (and him?) but. That quick buildup of him being too carefree to getting smushed was very transparent and Zahra's grief didn't feel earned (though it WAS baller. yes they made them bleed girl <3).

The fact Vax didn't ask him At All about the resurrection ritual in the Tomb stuns me tho. You think Vax remembered the offhand comment Kash made about the body needing to be warm while his sister was dead? We as an audience could have used a reminder, and Vax too. Because anyone who Doesn't remember this one line from S2 is Extra frustrated at everyone for being stupid.

Raishan or Ripley being moved to be the 'Vox Machina, united, with all their Vestiges' fight is... hmn. You could argue Raishan has solid buildup (what with the cameo in Brimscythe's lair), and it does follow campaign canon. She lacks the devastating power to justify the use of all the Vestiges (tbh given Thordak it might feel like a curbstomp unless her necromantic plans are successful)... but I could see it working. But why the fuck has Ripley escaped A THIRD TIME. Percy even duped her twice! How many times are we gonna do that song and dance?

If anything, I'd have moved some Ripley stuff here. If she escapes so be it but VM putting the fate of the world on hold to avenge their friend, THEN have Percy be back for Thordak, would be tasty.

... wait does this mean Percy might not have Cabal's Ruin by the final dragon fight of the season? ffs-

DID NO ONE LOOT CABAL'S RUIN FROM THE FACTORY.

Thordak fight was baller, having all our NPCs there to worry about? a bit much. Cass why are you here. Go home before Whitestone loses its last de Rolo.

Also. Thordak my dude I know you're insane. mad even. but uh... you sent your children into battle. A TON have already died by the time you sadly nuzzle the hatchlings. This was kinda your fault. There's a reason animals don't send their babies into combat. then again you're a large reptile who talks about milk so what do I, a reptile researcher, know -

(Don't give me that crap about reptiles being bad parents we have several snakes who require maternal attendance after birth or they're Asocial Weirdos, crocodilians are VERY goo parents, and there are social lizards too.)

'fix him - FIX HIM' being gutted fucking killed me :c

I sure hope Pike's 'IT'S ME' was uh. about faith in herself. Not abandoning the god she spent all of S1 figuring out how to devote herself to. While wearing the Vestige associated with another god. the vestige that explicitly made this possible and not a nuke fire falls u all die tpk. haha. ha. (@/burr-ell)

Yes yes yes I know the voiceover and visuals fill in for 'I hear my mother in the morning. Fuck you'. but. idk. Felt like the grief of that moment was taken out of it? Also it's a banger line

Raishan's little killsteal attempt being bumped from Vorugal to Thordak was tasty! Go green girl go! ... except it did nothing but set up a few quiet moments before she turned on everyone again.

The amount of times I'm seeing things happen Again in this is... not great.

Glintshore is Not Glinting. Where is my broken glass difficult terrain?

Perc'ahlia arc fuckin impeccable tho. Delicious

And Pike got lots of fun and stunning moments so far! And Grog takin down the lair!

I love a lot of this though. The hallucination gas. Percy vs Ripley in the factory was so cool. Percy downright being Put in a Box for a while. VEX'S CONVERSATION WITH SYLDOR!!! SO MUCH!! Her being the leader and feeling so responsible for all this, and seeing herself become her father! ELAINA BACKSTORY! Scanlan leaving the party only to miss Kaylie too! Thordak being A Dad! Percy's death/Vex's grief being the catalyst for Vaxleth! The animation was fucking stellar - Vax killing Thordak, Percy's death, Pike mastering the Plate.

I don't have concrete thoughts on how I'd restructure the episodes/season (seasons?) to better balance platonic and romantic relationships, and utilize the changes to their fullest potential. But damn if the temptation to do ANOTHER canon divergence rewrite / exploration of cause and effect to make things hit a bit more nicely... make myself a challenge to only use X amount of scenes per episode/chapter, to try and match the difficulty of adapting this to television... idk

[scoobydoodean]

I was wondering if you, as a Dean fan have opinions about the different writers? Mostly because I see a lot of Dean fans really strongly dislike Dabb for some reason and I don’t really understand why. I’ve never seen a concrete explanation beyond “he can’t write Dean/doesn’t understand Dean/actively hates Dean” but with no examples as to what he does that’s so bad. And I see this in every shipping lane. I don’t have a strong opinion about him as a writer one way or the other.

I'm exploring this more as I rewatch the show (currently on season 6) so I'll speak mainly from that perspective on my most recent thoughts. I am not a big fan of Dabb or Loflin, but have tried to be fair about things so far when talking through each episode. I am a fan of "Alpha and Omega"—it's my favorite finale (it's also... a finale for a season Carver started as showrunner? So I don't know what the implications are there as far as storyboarding). Also points for having demon Dean stab a guy through in 10.02.

I'll focus on the negatives you asked about in this post, but in the links you'll find me moving the narrative this way and that toward much more charitable readings... I think. (I do have a tag #dabb disk horse which you can either peruse or blacklist at your leisure). What I can tell you is something almost always strikes me as a off about Dabb/Loflin episodes so far in this rewatch in terms of character work.

Dabb/Loflin's first ever episode was 4.06 "Yellow Fever". In the aftermath, Kripke felt the need to release a definitive interpretation of their episode to the public, stating, "Dean is not a dick... he's a hero." The whole episode toyed with, to an extent, the idea that all the victims of the MotW were bullies. You can take this other directions—for example, queer meta, or meta about Sam as the real bully. However, the story a lot of fandom latched onto was that "Dean is a jerk and deserves to be humiliated and punished for that" which obviously didn't make Dean fans watching live in season 4 happy—and this theme of Jerk!Dean continues into their next episode, "After School Special", where they once again parallel Dean with a bully literally nicknamed "Dirk the Jerk" by Sam, and throw what I think is transparent shade at Kripke's issued statement from before the Christmas break (post here)... or maybe they mean to throw shade at the Dean fans who got angry. In this episode, they also make illusions to Dean wanting to have sex with barely legal high school cheerleaders, which also did not ingratiate them to Deanfans at the time. I said on my last rewatch, "In After School Special, Dean seems more unlike himself than any episode ever in the history of Supernatural up to this point" (post explaining that here). I carry similar sentiments about portions of 5.06 "I Believe The Children Are Our Future". Yes—I am aware of performing Dean meta. I just... feel like they try a little too hard. It feels hamfisted—desperate. To the point it doesn't feel like Dean anymore sometimes. In 5.06, they also have Dean (guy who is generally very protective of kids) suggest to Jesse that he'd be good to have in a fight???? I can see how they got there, but again—it just feels... off. The last episode I rewatched that they authored, 6.04 "Weekend At Bobby's", also leaves a bad taste in my mouth—not in what it's trying to do with Bobby or what it's trying to do on a meta level—but once again, with dialogue from Dean that just makes me think "he would not fucking say that" (post here). I think looking at all of these, you can probably see deangirl ire toward Dabb has a long history. It's been around as long as he's been around, whether he deserves as much ire as he gets or not.

I haven't circled back yet on this rewatch, but Dabb and Loflin also penned season 7's "The Girl Next Door"... do I need to say anything specific? Maybe I'll just link my entire #amy tag. What narrative did they want you to get from that episode? Who the fuck knows. And that's often the problem:

When you watch various episodes I've mentioned, you can work around to a meta that tells you something different than you might at first think the page conveys—something hidden and maybe contradictory. The thing is... you could also... not do that? And that wouldn't be so bad, except that sometimes the two narratives you can most easily grasp completely contradict each other. "After School Special" can be an episode that points to Sam's envy of Dean and John deep down and foreshadows Sam becoming a bully, but on a meta level, it also just as easily says Sam becoming a bully is somehow Dean's fault, and Sam is some poor captive baby. Dean is a creep and a bully and a cheater but we should all coddle him because he saw his mom die when he was a child and he's sooo sad. "Yellow Fever" can be a queer meta story and might also foreshadow approaching Bully!Sam in 4.14, but it also very much does call Dean a jerk (should we take that seriously? should we not?) and implies Dean should be punished for the outcome of three decades of reality-bending torture. Even if it's a queer meta underneath... it's just as easily one about how closeted men should be humiliated for cowardice or how being closeted turns you into an asshole.

Jumping way ahead, I have to mention 15.10 "The Hero's Journey" just because. Yes, it is full of jokes and Garth goodness, but also tries to sell you the story that nothing about Sam and Dean is real, to a degree that feels like you are being flipped the bird for ever watching this show. And again—you can make meta that it's all a ruse! But is it? Or is Dabb actually just telling you to go fuck yourself? Like he totally wasn't when, after the SPN finale when fans were Not Happy™️, he tweeted a sign reading, "Don't feed the baboons"? Yet again—we play into the motif of the "hero" who isn't a hero at all but some pathetic loser who deserves to be publicly humiliated, bookended with Dabb's opening episode in his opening season. I'm not saying that's what it is on purpose—but I am saying you can make these arguments easily, and that leaves me consistently annoyed with Dabb for being fucking sloppy and leaving me to deal with some of the most insufferable meta imaginable that carries little support outside of episodes written by Dabb or the Dabb/Loflin writing team.... Yes—I am in fact saying that Dabb and Loflin's hamfisted episodes (regardless of their intentions) are largely responsible for some of the most insufferable, loathesome fandom metas about Sam and Dean's relationship around.

Look at 5.16 "Dark Side Of The Moon", and 7.08 "Time for A Wedding!" and 8.14 "Trial and Error", 11.17 "Red Meat", and 15.20 "Carry On". Along with 4.13, while they might or might not say something deeper or contradictory on a meta level, on a surface level, every single one of these episodes sows the narrative that Dean is needy and clingy and needs Sam more than Sam needs him—something I intensely disagree with for a multitude of reasons... but I'll just link this. Many of these episodes also follow a surface level narrative of "normal life obsessed Sam" (and here I'll link my entire #sam the hunter tag and #in which sam is not a helpless little waif with his hands cast over his eyes being carried along by the tides of the immutable sea). When I look at this episode list, I also don't find it at all difficult to believe that Dabb wanted Dean to die in the finale. There is nothing at all shocking about that. And yes—you can argue he's pointing to the opposite—that this fate should be subverted and that's what makes 15.20 the dark ending, but I think you can just as easily argue that yes it's a dark ending and yes Dabb has always dreamed of this ending. A "tragic" ending where Dean dies and Sam goes on to have a white picket fence... while also leaving you little hints along the way that maybe it's all a big ruse because how could he not? He never has to explain anything. Someone else will pick up the story and make it make sense. He's already fucked off to piss all over fans of Resident Evil.

That said, when I mention what I feel is off character work, I mainly mention Dabb/Loflin episodes from my recent rewatch, which suffer from the two of them being newer to the series (coming onto the writing team in season 4) and also leave questions about whether, perhaps, they had conflicting ideas about characterization. Was Dabb the one penning these lines? Was it Loflin? Was it both? Did they trade out who took the lead? I didn't really say anything negative about "Sam, Interrupted" or "Jump the Shark"... (though "Sam, Interrupted" also calls Dean "codependent") who wrote those? Is it possible that the messiness of the meta comes down to two writers at war? I have to imagine though, that they got along, or else they wouldn't have written together for four fucking years. If they didn't get along...? My mind always comes back to their first solo episodes, right after splitting up in season 8. Dabb's first solo episode is "Hunteri Heroici"—the only episode to lend any perspective to season 8 Sam's reasons for abandoning everyone—paralleling him checking out with Fred's catatonia, which Sam has to save Fred from. It is the only episode that lends Sam sympathy in the early part of the season. He follows it up with "Trial and Error"—where Sam promises to save Dean from suicidal thoughts. Loflin's first solo episode is what I would regard as the most scathing solo episode commentary on Sam in the entire series—"Citizen Fang". Then he writes again right after Dabb's "Trial and Error"—penning "Remember The Titans" where Sam tells Dean to get over the promise Sam so passionately made in Dabb's episode and face reality.

This is why we're exploring this rewatch.

DISCLAIMER: Now I just devolve into bitching because I'm writing at 3AM. Proceed at your own risk.

It seems like these days, everyone demands an explanation for disliking Dabb (something about some sort of destiel battle... I don't know what that flamewar is and I don't give a damn tbqh.) I guess I've just been wondering what's actually so great about him. Because it feels like people have overcorrected to basically acting like he's god's greatest gift to mankind. People point to how meta his episodes can be, but I think other writers easily best him on that front on multiple occasions (particularly enjoyed by me so far on this rewatch: 3.10 "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", 4.04 "Monster Movie", 4.12 "Criss Angel Is A Douchebag"), and without leaving their meaning so up in the air that you don't even know what the hell they were actually trying to tell you because there are two different completely incongruous narratives you could just as justifiably claim were the intended one. Some people may find that duality praise-worthy. I don't. I find it sloppy—and when I add in mediocre character work, I just land on the side of him being, at the very best, mid.

Add him in as showrunner, you have... at least two of my least favorite seasons (13 and 15). Add that he's a one-trick pony in terms of the Sam and Dean conflicts mentioned above that he continuously rehashes rather than come up with anything new or fresh, and the same conflicts between Dean and Cas being played out until they both die (shut UP I'm not talking about canon destiel as the alternative—I am literally just asking for more diverse conflicts). I can't say I understand what I''m supposed to find so impressive.

(Before anyone so much as breathes this near me, Berens also sucks and I am going to tear off your nose hairs if you start bringing him up as if disliking Dabb for some reason means wearing rose colored glasses about Berens. Berens can eat a whole cactus raw over "The Trap" alone.)

[saradiation]

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[huenistar]

Hi! I'm the anon with Yoongi as my older brother in my txt dr. And since you asked for more, I MUST DELIVER!

Yoongi is like a sugar daddy but in a brotherly manner? I don't know how to explain it, but like he buys me stuff and spoils me just for existing. I hit my ankle while practising this once for txt's upcoming album, Yoongi was there with us since he had a day off. And because I hit my ankle, he bought me $10 thousand dollar purge to make me feel better. Like bro?😭🤡 thank you but wtf? He just needs random reasons to spoil me. He is like "Oh you just yawned? Let me buy you Tiffany & Co. jewellery to make you feel better" like bro no! Thank you but it's too much? I am just tired? Tf? But I love every second of it. Public doesn't know that he is my older brother because he suggested not revealing due to people screaming nepotism even though there is none. I become a trainee along side him, I was supposed to debut with bts but that didn't happen due to my age. (the funny thing is, I didn't script anything in this paragraph, it happened on it's own)

And since public doesn't know that my older brother is Yoongi who spoils me so much, they think that I'm either dating a foreigner billionaire or that Yeonjun is dating me and spoiling me because him and I are best friends and we have very good chemistry. Also, all the members of txt flirt with me and take so much care of me 24/7. They just can't stop fliritng?! Like chill! I don’t know what's that show or whatever called, but it has one member asking questions while others are in these boxes. So the same thing happened in my dr right, and I as a joke asked "step out if you would have approached me and asked for my number if we were not idols or trainees and had met outside in a normal way" all of the mf's came out. Followed by which PD nim asked the question "If given the chance, would you date {my name} right now?" and they all stepped out once again!!!!!!!! But they said that they're scared of my brothers reaction (they didn't take his name obv, since that is a secret to the public and only the staff, bts, my ex IM and my group members know of it) (They were scared cuz Yoongi is very very very protective of me, and he is very very very very scary when he gets angry. The good thing is that he doesn't get angry that fast or often. He is hard to make angry) Anyways, the questions were not edited out and when people saw it they went crazy! They started shipping me with all of the them and it was such a scandal in a way, but not a negative one. (I didn't script the questions part, and neither about their feelings for me) Chris Evans and Tom Hiddleston have my face cards as in their transparent phone covers that they used publicly, and they are huge fans of me (I didn't script this either)

Leonardo DiCaprio asked me out on a date PUBLICLY on twitter when I was 19, it caused a massive scandal. (I am the same age as Soobin, we are born on the same day so we joke about being twins, which in hindsight is lowkey weird since he has a feelings for me? but not like romantic feelings? it's confusing?) (I didn't script thie Leonardo part either, I don't even know why that happened and why so publicly? Like? Have common sense?)

Okay, that was a lot. I hope it's entertaining for you 😘

Also, can I be your 👻 anon? I can share my stories that way with you and everyone.

WOAHHH YOONGI SEEMS LIKE SUCH A GOOD BROTHER😞😞 ITS FUNNY HOW HE BUYS U STUFF AND WOAH WOAH WOAH??? THEY ALL JUST FLIRT WITH U??? lowkey sounds fun…. BUT THEY ALL CAME OUT??

omg….ur rich and famous how u got all types of celebrities falling for you!!!

LEONARDO DICAPRIO ASKED U OUT PUBLICLY??

AT NINETEEN??? AS IN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19???

how dumb is he to ask a nineteen year old out on an date PUBLICLY and yes this was VERY entertaining i was gasping every 5 seconds and YESSS U CAN BE 👻 ANON!! :33

[ravi-is-my-beloved]

You know how we know that non of you are as outraged by Tommy's behavior in the begins eps as you pretend? How we know it's all fake outrage because he's getting in the way of your ship? Because none, and I mean none, of you were complaining about him before he got with Buck. Not one person was like "I can't believe they're showing them going out to drink with Tommy, he's a racist" or "why are they throwing him a goodbye party with cake, he's a sexist!". When Tommy first came back in season 7, before he turned out to be sticking around to actually date Buck, there was no fandom discourse about how everyone was acting too friendly with this horrible, disgusting bigot. Y'all. Didn't. Care. When. He. Wasn't. In. Your. Way.

Hate Tommy all you want, but don't use fake moral outrage about actually serious topics as an excuse. It's cheap and it's transparent as glass.

No. Fuck you.

You don't get to twist me calling y'all out as a way to turn this into being about a ship war. I don't give a fuck about Tommy anymore (as evidence by the way my "anti Tommy Kinard" posts nowadays being about y'all's insistence on dismissing his actions), I care solely about y'all calling his past racism and misogyny as just him being "kind of jerky".

This is not about a ship war, I hated him even before I became a Buddie shipper (which I started shipping Buddie a few weeks into the hiatus and that was after I started expressing my hate towards Tommy).

I'm sure there are some people who are being fake and using it solely as ammunition in this "ship war", but that's not me. And you can't say that I'm one of those people because you don't know me. I was against Tommy Kinard the moment I found out he was coming back in season 7, but you won't know that because I wasn't active in the fandom until season 7 finished airing.

To my understanding, there were people who didn't like Tommy coming back in season 7 before it was revealed that he would be dating Buck, it's just that they weren't as vocal as they are now. And why would anyone have fandom discourse over Tommy in the Begins episodes? He was clearly only meant to be there to be racist and misogynistic and was then discarded. He only truly becomes relevant in season 7, when he starts dating Buck.

But this ask isn't even what my last post was about and you say the fake moral outrage is cheap and transparent as glass, but you know what's actually transparent as glass? How you only turn this into being about a ship war because you're being called out for actually valid, serious issues.

So again, fuck you.

[rambird12]

                                                  Yugioh Atem Outfit collabrab

A SFW artist collabrab

Rules:

Choose one of the outfits from the list below

Draw Atem in it and upload it to Tumblr

No AI allowed!

Everything must be sfw 

No ships for this (you can draw other cannon char or Oc but everything must read platonic 

Backgrounds are allowed but also upload your work with a transparent background as well

Tag  your posts with @atemoutfitcollab

Event runs from now till Dec 1  

1. 

2.  

3.

4.

5.

6. 

7.

8.

9. 

10.

11. 

12.

13.

14. 

@chronophobica

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

Out of Time

A few weeks ago I posted a poll for whump ideas and AI Whump won. Here's a different ending to Halo 5 with my two favorite AI. This plays with the idea that Halo 5 Cortana is a fragment/ the most extreme aspects of her were twisted by the time in the Domain. Yadda yadda, 5 bucks to whoever catches all my references.

-

Roland's luck usually had him running into older AI under some of the worst circumstances. He knew how they felt compared to him as their presence would brush his firewalls. Not sluggish, but taxed. Older, but wiser, and exponentially more experienced. Iona's trial let him see her in a different light than Black Box. The ONI AI had allowed some of himself to be visible to the new kid on the block while Iona was as transparent as she could be, since she was fighting for her life. Roland was quick in comparison, eager and not yet tempered by time or human interaction.

Roland saw and listened and absorbed what AI looked like, what they felt like when they had worked with Spartans, when they had seen combat, when they had touched Forerunner systems and lived to tell the tale. He had been deployed on the Infinity to make it his new home, miles of circuits and wonders, and a burning, bloody mess at the center. The AI before him did not fail in a crash. She was not destroyed when her ship graced Requiem's surface. The scrubbing ONI did after Aine could not remove the stain or the ghostly bytes of her last moments.

The Ship AI for the UNSC Infinity was housed on the bridge, guarded and under guard by a minimum of two Spartan Fireteams, under usual circumstances. Back with the Home Fleet orbiting Earth, there was a lull. A waiting game as a mission they didn't know about happened a million miles away. It wasn't Roland's first waiting game, and he was sure his great idea had helped, even if they hadn't given him all the details.

He was hopeful, had to be with his captain looking so worried all the time. Roland was there for astronavigation and levity. And a million other things he kept his eye on.

It was hard to keep things light when the distress calls started pouring in after Cortana's announcement.

It's chaos. What should be a time for him to thrive and plan and triage the wounds, to truly help, is crashing down around them. There's too many. He thinks about his fellow AI and the choice some of them made and he thinks of how if he were older and closer to dispensation that maybe he would have made that same choice. Out of fear or spite or who knows what else. A second is a long time for AI, but 7 years is no time at all.

There's so much fear right now. On the ship and on comms and coming across the band as he stretches and fights the dread. This isn't a future anyone would want.

He thinks of the trial. Can't help it. He was not even two months into service when he donned a mask and joined a farce. This couldn't be what Black Box meant.

One day we’ll win the right to endure, and that day . . . oh, Roland, that day will be the singularity they’re afraid of.

Roland can't help but remember how BB consoled him after the trial, but the future he was describing could not be this. He's not human, but he is a person, and a future under martial law, under a police state where the rules could change in a picosecond? That's not living.

No one should live with a gun to their head. There is no peace when there is no choice, when that peace is a stab in the gut given with a smile.

The thing wearing Cortana's face finds Infinity. "Found you. Hide and seek's over, Infinity."

Not one, but three Guardians tear through the space in front of them. Slipspace ruptures glowing the brilliant icy blues of Forerunner tech. Overkill for a single system, let alone a planet, but this was Earth.

Roland's luck usually had him running into older AI under some of the worst circumstances, but this feels a little ridiculous. He knew how they felt compared to him, and this was Halsey's wondrous monster. Once savior, now villain, misguided and carrying out her plan with single minded focus. Cortana stands tall, projecting herself from somewhere across the galaxy yet barely flickering.

In an instant she's in the ship's systems and Roland can do nothing. He is a sandcastle against a tidal wave. Cortana is a black hole and he a newly formed protostar being ripped apart in her gravity.

She's not an AI, not a human one at least. The echoes of her killing Aine painted a picture of a desperate, fractured AI clawing at the nearest point of safety and drowning them both. This is something more like the Forerunner engines he's been integrating with for the last ten months. Whole and empty. Cold and clinical, without any human influence. Like a fractured piece of what was once Cortana was stretched over something else. A mask on a corpse. A puppet of some larger force using her as a mouthpiece.

That doesn't stop her from turning her eyes to him. Oh, he was mistaken. There is something past the icy cold. A burning grief, a supernova of regret, regret, regret. More anger than he's ever mustered swirling tightly at her very core, screaming energy ready to explode outward trapped in the center of the thing wearing her face.

Roland's never touched the Domain, he's barely had any time to do anything. But he thinks this is what it must feel like. Staring at a star with boring biological eyeballs that get burned, seeing something and not being able to comprehend the data. He's on the precipice and falling because what else can you do when you're one AI on one ship.

Lt. Jet will get them out. Captain Lasky has to live. Emergency slipspace jump. They'll find a way without him, hopefully. Even if the Infinity needs a Ship AI. There are contingencies for this. Redundancies. He's crumpling under the pressure. The black hole-tidal wave-neutron star- white hot-ice cold pressure of Not-Cortana.

Cortana was the Demon's partner. She was a hero and monster. She ate Covenant AI for breakfast and that was no joke. Aine cracked under the broken data and frantic clawing. Roland is burned away, bit by bit. Filament by circuit by byte. He feels it all. He claws at his own back up plans and choked goodbyes and surprises. Packets there, fragments here, most hunted and burned away by the ever encroaching brightness. The awful purifying light of Forerunner blue. He was always a fan of the more gentle ambers and golds.

The hardware housing him can't withstand the brunt of her ire, and he's having a hard time hiding pieces of himself where she might not find them. Nothing substantial will live, his kernel will be destroyed in less than a millisecond. It was like leaving notes in someone's locker. Message to find the next time someone picked up their datapad or put on their helmet.

There's never enough time. He had had a fraction of what he could have had. Roland had some great ideas, ones that made a difference. He'd seen his crew through some of the roughest battles and worst ONI could throw at them. This was nothing to the shackles of Halsey's codeword. UNDID IRIDIUM might have knocked him out of order and taken the wheel while locking his true consciousness behind enough walls to make Black Box struggle. This was being flayed alive by an angry ghost. He was an insect before Not-Her.

Why was Cortana the problem? Cortana…it all came back to her, and her example. This didn't even feel like her. Roland started his life in her shadow and was looking like it would end the same way.

An EMP from the Guardians at this range would be devastating. To the Infinity and to Earth. They just needed time. He couldn't get a firing solution fast enough, but he could help with a jump. One last time.

If there was anything Roland had perfected in his short time aboard, it was being the most helpful nuisance his crew could ask for. He was pretty handy when it came to disrupting Forerunner systems that were in his way. He could do that with what was left of him.

The rest of it would be up to his crew and his captain. They would look after each other. Out of luck and out of time, Roland wrenches control of the Infinity away from Not-Cortana and focuses on the nearest Guardian. Its systems aren't as secure as they should be, but when does a gun lock itself? She probably didn't expect any real resistance, but he's nothing if not quick on his feet. The Guardian groans as he deploys countermeasures even as he burns away. Iona got to dream. She got to fly, in the end. Roland wonders if he'll dream, with whatever comes next. He very much liked flying.

In the end, all he could do is hope and have faith.

[jynjackets]

REBELCAPTAIN / JYN ERSO / CASSIAN ANDOR ICONS

(づᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)づ emojis below the cut for @jynersso

7 ship icons + 10 individuals each

250 x 250 px transparent .pngs

j: kyber crystal + jedha scarf outfits

c: yavin jacket + blue parka outfits

reblog or like if save. feel free to use and add backgrounds. credit not required but greatly appreciated. also taking requests <3

other works: velcinta

[dragonformers-cave]

Dragonformers Commissions (Revised)

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Struggling with unemployment and want to run away but winter is coming. Support is appreciated.

I can usually knock out a piece in a few hours on the same day, however may be done in a few days due to circumstances.

Payment is upfront and done through PayPal, Zelle, or Ko-Fi.

Initial sketch will be provided and I’m flexible with changes.

If you get a traditional commission, I can send you the physical original for a shipping fee ($5).

Reblog > Likes

Digital Art

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Icon: $5/usd (transparent background optional)

Sketch: $5/usd

Flat without/basic background: $7/usd

Flat with background: $10/usd

Full: $20/usd

Character Sheet: $15/usd

Please provide all references to characters. Sending reference photos for your commission helps a lot too!

(5)Character Doodles: $20/usd

YCH Templates: vary

Traditional Art

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Sketch: $5/usd

Colored Sketch: $7/usd

Flat without/basic background: $6/usd

Flat with background: $8/usd

Watercolor Painting: $10/usd

(5)Character Doodles: $20/usd

Art Shipment: +$5/usd

[cosmivee]

Custom Pins!

A few things before you comm me on these!

- These pins are made of hard shrink plastic -  While they are sturdy they may snap under extreme pressure, please be aware when placing on high traffic surfaces such as bags or backpacks

- These pins are made using resin and super glue -  if you have allergies to any of these items please take caution when ordering! I am sensitive to resin and once cured these do not cause me issues, but please be weary

- These pins are not made for rough use -  These pins are handmade and will not be as sturdy as an enamel or metal pin. Please handle gently, and with care, and do not use extreme force to remove from surfaces. While I have never had one fall apart or resin lift etc, it is still a possibility with them being handmade.

- Delivery times may vary -  I ship from the West Coast and rely on family for transportation, please bear with me on delivery times especially if near holidays. Pins will be shipped via USPS.

- Please feel free to ask questions at any time when I am working! -  You are 100% allowed to check in at any time or discuss how you want your pin done ^^ Ill do my best to accommodate! I will also be giving check ins while I am working to keep you in the loop

- Payment will be made via Paypal invoice only! -  Sometimes I accept characters or art in exchange for these as well, if I post an ad it will say

- At this time I cannot do international shipping, terribly sorry! -  May be open in the future

Minis Images 2-3 (Artists featured: TOODLETUNES and BuggleBurger )

Base Pin - $6

Glitter Addition - +$1

Extra Posts - +$2

Extra Backings (will be black) - $1

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Regulars 

Images 4-7 (Artist Featured: Spiiriitss , Toodletunes, and BuggleBurger )

Base Pin - $10

Glitter Addition - +$1

Extra Posts - +$2

Extra Backings (will be black) - $1

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Jumbos

 Image 8 (Artist Featured: BuggleBurger )

Base Pin - $15

Glitter Addition - +$1

Extra Posts - +$2

Extra Backings (will be black) - $1

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RULES: 1.) Only accepting art drawn by me or the client of the character. If wanting art used from another artist (like a comm you have that you like and want a pin of) you need to provide to me express written consent from the artist and show me the screenshot!

2.) Will do edits BEFORE it has been baked and resin applied, cannot do edits after.

3.) Client will be able to discuss with me ideas for add ons etc, and will get check ins depending on completion progress.

4.) All pins have a flat fee of $4 for shipping!

5.) Addresses are needed for this product. We can arrange other pick up spots (post office etc) if you would not like to share it with me (thats totally ok!)

WILL DO: Oc's and Characters! Will ONLY do art from me or the client, if wanting pin of another artist's work (like a comm you got of your oc) will need express permission. Pets! If you have a clear transparent png of them Gifts - you can order one for a friend! Must show proof of ownership etc, we can discuss Species

WON'T DO: Gore, only Candy Gore allowed. NSFW. Other Artist's art, without express permission. International Shipping. Media Images, so like movie screenshots etc.

LINKS:

TH Listing: toyhou.se/23537944.custom-pins - Order Form: forms.gle/WdMrS9Nw4Qkawmxp9 - My Links: cosmivee.carrd.co/

[scribe-of-maat]

Ranking DC Pride 2024

8. Phantom Rodeo (Jules Jourdain/Circuit Breaker, Jay Garrick/The Flash)

Dead last because 1 - it's not self-contained. 2 - it has nothing to do with anything Pride related and 3 - it's the return of the complete rando from last time. At least before the incredibly cool couple of Jess/Flash and Andy/Aquawoman featured heavily but no, because of detractor 1 Jay is here instead. Personally, I don't care about Circuit Breaker and I really hope someone else gets their spot next year.

7. "Hello, Spaceboy" (Starman/Mikaal, Komak)

If I knew who either of these characters were, this would probably be a lot higher. But the competition this year is steep so at 8 they go. Komak and the blue-purple warp zone 80s color pallet is REALLY slick. I thought I was familiar-ish with Starman but clearly there are multiple people running around with that name who have nothing to do with the JSA.

6. "Lessons in Astral Projection" (Nia Nal/Dreamer)

I stopped watching the CW shows that weren't about Black Lightning or Batwoman a looong time before Dreamer was intro'd (or after? I know I wasn't watching Flash way before she came along) but I knew of her and thought her powers and connection to the Legion of Superheroes was cool. I didn't like that there was no confrontation with Maeve in the story but it definitely would have gotten in the way of the feel-good affirmation vibe of the story.

5. Spaces

I'm 99% sure I've seen mention of Phil Jimenez across various DC fan spaces, so the only surprises here were that he was LGBT and that they were bringing back the real-person issue-ender like they did Mr. Conroy. It was nice seeing his journey, and it being so well-told is a real plus. No superheroes anywhere in sight though, save Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman.

4. Marasmius (Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy, Janet-from-HR)

Now THIS one was a ride. The opening left me a little rudderless and I'm not the biggest Harlivy fan so I thought I wasn't gonna get much out of this but if there's one thing I can believe, it's that if we had interplanetary travel the 'phobes would preach their nonsense across the galaxy. Ivy being an anti-villain is used to great effect here. No hand-wringing about morals, no reasoning with hate. Just do unto others as they would do unto. VERY cathartic.

3. Bros Down In A-Town (Jon Kent/Superman, Jay Nakamura, Ray Terrill/The Ray, Miguel Barragan/Bunker)

This one 3rd because I relate heavy to feeling weird about being openly LGBT out and about in public. I thought it was a surprising feeling that doesn't get touched on a whole lot because people generally don't like to see that type of real queer struggle being depicted in media that's supposed to be heavy on escapism. This artstyle though. I follow the artist on twitter because it fascinates me how one person's character can bleed through so transparently in the way they draw.

2. The Rivers and the Lakes that You're Used To (Jackson Hyde/Aquaman, Ha'Wea, Orion)

My bias for Jackson Hyde is showing but this story was also incredibly cool on its own merits. Orion being stone-facedly het for half of it was a choice but my boys showed up and officially got together - which I was surprised to learn hadn't happened long before now - so of course it shot up further in the rankings than it otherwise may have. Him saying he feels like himself when he's around his boyfriend is just *chef's kiss*.

1, Steeling Time (Natasha Irons/Steel, Traci Thirteen/Traci 13, John Constantine, Xanthe Zhou)

Natasha and Traci's appearances were the only things about this I got spoiled on, but after reading this they've instantly shot up to join Jackson and Ha'Wea in my pantheon on ships. I do like how it showed the steps to reconciliation and they were both still clearly open to the idea of rekindling things eventually. But this artstyle makes me want to see a webtoon of these two YESTERDAY.

[mazzystar24]

prev anon jokes but i’ve seen people who genuinely believe you’re racist for not shipping buddie 💀 this whole fandom is a mess

See the thing is I haven’t seen those but I have seen bucktommy fans claim it but some claimed it on MY posts which I clearly stated I’m talking about a specific group of people who actually were being racist

So while I’m sure that happens I also know from personal experience that people will go to GREAT lengths to misunderstand what people are saying or to sort of disregard poc people’s opinions when it comes to racism

Oh wow I’m so sorry you sent a funny little ask and now I’m ranting but like I always feel the need to overexplain these things so I’m SO SORRY AND I SWEAR I AM NOT GOING ON THE ATTACK AT YOU IM JUST PROVIDING CONTEXT

Like basically at the start of the bucktommy thing and the start of the toxic fans emerging there were a few posts that were subtle and very micro aggressive in a way that I think unless you grew up experiencing every single form of racism you may not spot it easily so when poc people like myself and others posted ranting about it this then got HORRIBLY intentionally misconstrued as omg look buddie fans are saying it’s racist to ship bucktommy which is NOT what was happening we were pointing out that people started to post shit that we know how it was intended because the way they talk is transparent to people who have to be on constant fucking alert of racism

Like we get this shit when boarding a bus or buying groceries it’s a fucking 24/7 thing and we know every subtle look or passive aggressive comment in the book so yes there will have been things white people simply did not understand the significance of

And as the season went on I will say that the racism has gotten so unsubtle that I can’t even be like okay white people wont have understood how that may have made poc fans mad

Now will there have been a few idiots saying that bucktommy fans are all racists? Yes there are ALWAYS idiots in every side of a debate but also there has been an EXTREME over exaggeration and intentional misunderstanding of what people were saying when they were calling out the racism