#But I already have like 2 Slim fics being written sooooo

[thefandomstorage]

A part of me wants to write a fic with Gil-Galad somehow meeting up with an injured and still heavily traumatized Maeglin who now has white hair after the fall of Gondolin and just “Well I obviously can’t just leave you alone and injured in the wild, so I’ll take you with me.”

Gil-Galad then proceeds to lie his ass off to everyone about the strange elf he brought back and is obviously hiding. What elf? Oh that one! He’s just a friend. What’s his name? Uhm...What a coincidence, it seems to have slipped my mind! Gottagobye!

Gil-Galad keeps telling himself that he’ll exile Maeglin or hand him over to the Gondolin survivors, but he keeps putting it off, even when Maeglin is majority healed. Next thing they know, the armies of Valinor have arrived and the War of Wrath ramps up. With nothing left to do, Gil gives Maeglin a disguised name, armor and a sword, and together, they fight. They are quite surprised to discover that they work very well together. That’s probably when they start becoming friends. 

And then Elrond comes in. And Gil is trying so hard to keep his two friends separated. Which is hard when you’re friends with a very curious and nosey peredhel who is very suspicious about the mysterious white haired elf who is always with the king.

It’s even funnier if Elrond is hiding Maglor 

Elrond: Is that Maeglin?! Gil-Galad with an obvious Maeglin behind him: No no no, you’re seeing things. 

*Maglor passes by behind Elrond*

Gil-Galad: Is that Maglor Feanorian?!

Elrond: No, you’re seeing things.

[alcheminary]

do you ship royed? if not, do you mind it?

oh boy!! someone hasn’t read my about!!

not only do I not ship it, I have a personal vendetta against it

…………………………

…. Alright, okay. As funny as it is to leave it at that, because of the climate of uhhhhhh. people are callin’ em antis, right?? yeah, I don’t really subscribe to that either (it’s just simply way too broad of a term to really mean anything for one), so if I don’t completely detail my shit, I’m gonna get lumped in with like. death-threat anons. and I’d like to be judged for my actual views, not the ones I’m perceived as having

sooooo my full stance is this:

I don’t like RoyEd as an interpretation of canon, and I certainly don’t like it in canon timelines “aged up”. I think the risk that kind of content invites, although often unintentional, to be used by actual predators to groom victims? is far too great for any kind of artistic merit to outweigh it. I have friends who’ve had it happen to them, and I myself came very close to having it happen to me. The fact of the matter is that most RoyEd content skeeves me the fuck out. (And I don’t blame people for wanting it so far out of their zone they block RoyEd content and creators on sight. I think it’s totally rational.)

BUT. And this is very important: I said most.

As someone who prides themselves on rational thought and being able to admit when I’m wrong, it’s important to me that I acknowledge the possibility of a RoyEd story that thoroughly thwarts any attempts to be used or interpreted in such a way, enough that its merits DO outweigh that risk. I think it’s like, a 0.00002% chance, but I’ll acknowledge it’s there. Largely because I’ll give other stories that play the AU card a pass in re: fucking with the ages of characters, so I can’t be internally consistent if I don’t.

Which is why, and this is going to probably lose myself some bigtime points with my friends the antis, if I see a RoyEd story that has an interesting concept and it doesn’t immediately make me want to throw my phone out the window? I’ll give it a try, because there is a part of me that is desperate to be “fair” and to be proven wrong.

I don’t often finish those stories. Hell, more often than not, I stumble into them unintentionally because I’m just atrociously bad at looking at tags. But I’ll see if they’re worth their salt and if they manage to convince me that RoyEd can be good, actually. Because, I don’t know, maybe someday someone with something worthwhile to say in the context of RoyEd will blow my mind? Like, I’m not going to fault someone for trying something out, you know? To try answering the same question I’m over here asking: Is there a universe where RoyEd could work? Not that a majority of people producing RoyEd content fall into this category for me. I can think of like, ONE person.

(Not like, AU universe. I’m using philosophy jargon here, which is asking this question: “Is there a universe where my premises are true, but my conclusion is false?”, which I can explain another time if anyone’s interested.)

…. So far none of them have. I’ve been thoroughly unimpressed, by large. There is so much recontextualizing that would need to be done, and it just doesn’t happen. I don’t know if that’s because the fandom’s been around so long that RoyEds are a splinter faction with their own lore and prerequisite texts that the fic I’m looking for has already been written and they’re all just reinterpreting reinterpretation upon reinterpretation on that concept so I don’t even have the context to pick up what they’re putting down, or if they really just think that’s what chemistry in a relationship looks like and… ohhhhh buuuoooy do a lot of them not get that far away from the core gross of RoyEd.

Anyway. I still land solidly within the bounds of “anti”. What I’m describing is anomalous to what RoyEd largely is right now. So, in conclusion (or tl;dr:)

- I hate RoyEd for both personal and moral reasons- You’ll never see me reblog or promote it- I don’t hate it so much that I can’t acknowledge the slim chance that there could be something worthwhile in that mire- However, I haven’t found that exception yet, and I don’t think it’s worth excusing RoyEd at large for- This is a personal stance I’ve taken that I would never expect anyone else to take to be a good and moral person, and sympathize with people who lean so hard into “RoyEd hate” that they don’t want to see or hear about it or interact with people who would- Don’t get me wrong though. I’m still an “anti”. Chances are if you ship RoyEd and you followed this blog 1) I’ve noticed, 2) I don’t like you, and 3) the only reason I’m keeping you around is because I have a sliver of hope that you’re a good person ready to think critically about the implications and influence of the media (even fan-created) you consume or create, because you know what? I’ve got something like 9 volumes of Dengeki Daisy in a box somewhere. I’ve been there.

If you or anyone else has further inquiries or wants more elaboration on how I arrived at this point then you can hmu. lord knows I’m a little bit tired and punchy and off my medicine and so I might have skipped over something integral to my stance. but I would prefer it wasn’t on anon, and uhhh, that if you’re going to try and argue with me? you’re over 18.

now if you’ll excuse me I super gotta pass out