#Like I don't like them as a ship but i am obsessed with how isolated and miserable foolish is in canon

[rutadales]

okay i kinda lied when i said i didn't like e.ternalduo but only in the sense its horrible for cfoolish like does that make sense. the energy of dying to save someone and then they end up ghosting you after is actually kind of amazing

[bluejay757]

spoilers for the book of bill

Gravity Falls has some of the weirdest fannon vs. cannon I've ever seen

Cannon: Ford views Bill as a friend/ colleague, a person he trusts, whose God like power he was intrigued by. Whereas Bill filled his head with lies, inflated his ego, gained sympathy for him by making him believe an evil monster destroyed his dimension leaving him homeless, tells Ford he is the only person who truly understands him and that without him he will be misunderstood and alone forever, isolated him from his only friend because he was obsessed with Ford and wanted him only for himself, and the minute Ford stops giving Bill what he wants, he goes bat shit fucking insane, invades Fords body without his consent and tortures him, drives a fucking nail into his hand and eats spiders.

Fannon: umm... actually it's hinted at to be cannonical that Ford had romantic feelings for Bill. 👉👈

...

Don't even get me started on the people who think Bill destroyed his dimension on accident and that he's the good guy.

"Bill's whole deal is lying, he wants you to think he's more evil than he is, he didn't mean to kill them all."

Dude do you hear yourself? Throughout the book Bill tells the story as if he was in the right, like he wasn't trying to kill people. Bro Bill wants you to think that he's the good guy so you'll feel bad for him. Bill destroying his dimension in order to "liberate" them feels like a Christian cult leader who killed all of their followers in order to "save" them.

"People who think Bill is the bad guy are the kind of people who would let him possess them, their the kind of people he wants."

Yeah, unlike Ford, who trusted Bill and believed him to be a good guy, people like Ford would neeeeever let Bill invade their mind. Once more,do you hear your-fucking-self? You're eating right out of his palm like he wants you to. In the book he addresses the reader as someone who trusts him and will let him into their mind, and you think that he really is telling the truth? And that you, the one who believes everything he says is true is the kind of person Bill wouldn't want??

Listen, I'm not dawging on anyone's headcannons. And I'm not saying you can't ship BillFord just because it's toxic, I know you know it's toxic, and I know that that's the point. Believe what you want ship what you want, it's a free country. I'm dawging on people who have zero media literacy and then accuse everyone else around them of having zero media literacy. I am genuinely confused as to how anyone could interpret Bill and Ford's relationship as romantic, and I DON'T MEAN as a head cannon, I mean the people who read TBOB and genuinely think that it's CANNON. It's not. Bill had an OBSESSION with Ford, and Ford was amazed with Bill because he was a literal fucking god. I promise you Ford did not want to the fuck the triangle. Yes, it is comparable to/ a metaphor for an unhealthy toxic ex, but it's not meant to be a literal ex. That's how metaphors work, they aren't literal.

Edit: "it's unlikely he (bill) was lying about it (destroying his dimension) being an accident." Yes because bill is famously known for telling the truth always. Quick question, were you born with that railroad spike in your brain or did Bill put it there?

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

This might not be normal but I’m dying to know your opinion on the ship wars. I don’t know why I’m obsessed with your opinion on the matter but I am very interested in your thoughts on it. 🙂

hi anon!!!

(pls note these are my opinions)

i don't have extreme opinions on the ship themselves. like lucien, elain, gwyn, azriel, and morrigan are all very boring characters to me. i feel like all of these pairings would be like watching paint dry. like let's think about it - elain's pov would literally just have to rework and rehash so many events in the story to make her likable (to the general audience). we've already discussed their vague human life and its clear sjm didn't really event that much lore about their lives before the story. elain has no conflicts with any members save for the whole weird and awkward mate / azriel situation. there's no established villain. azriel has no personality. lucien is in limbo and has no personality. the whole thing about lucien being helion son is ultimately useless and doesn't really change anything (the story is also arguing that i should root for helion despite the fact he just is okay with loa being abused). beron is a caricature villain who made his life harder by just reviving his age old enemy whom he dislikes and has since he was born. so how serious am i supposed to take him as a villain?

koschei is just there and is also another villain with no personality. morrigan also has no personality. gwyn is also just there and I mean I wouldn't say there's a lot of build-up for her either. but at the very least she has some inner conflicts to resolve. rhys is obviously not going to be a real barrier. there's literally no appeal to any of these characters IMO.

if the story would handle an illyrian plotline with emerie and azriel at the wing, i'd probably be interested but unfortunately sjm is the writer so it wouldn't be good. but yeah weirdly enough I would enjoy an emerie x az story (not romantic - but I wouldn't mind; I would love an emerie x female illyrian but alas there are no named illyrian females in this entire series besides her). i think the story unironically sets up an interesting dynamic between the illyrians and the night court but the story genuinely doesn't seem them as victims in any capacity - but I've got to admit its an interesting setup. think about it:

illyrians mothers raise these sons who grow up to hate them. women are isolated in these communities and robbed of their ability to fly; but these women are also semi-indoctrinated to sone extent to exalt this system of brutality and violence. mother's send their sons off to the blood rite to die so that they can serve and protect an utopia (velaris) that they have no access to. their high lord passes law - but is naught to enforce them because he recognizes who integral this oppression is to his political and militaristic aspirations. their high lord leaves their burgeoning communities without leadership for almost half a century to join forces with amarantha but then comes back after his tenure and SLAUGHTERS and tortures hordes of people for doing the same thing despite the fact he removed any court protection from them.

its interesting to me! id read that. it also kind of reminds me of the dynamic between paul atreides / jessica and their use of the fremen in dune (please read if you haven't! very fun and surprisingly easy read!)

[mr-nauseam]

re: ask game

12, 25 for marcus and sejanus!

omg first I appreciate the questions very much buddy!!!!! <3 12. What's a headcanon you have for this character? Let me think… I can quite proudly say that I got it into vicó's head that Marcus has scars <3

Some on his face, on his neck and a lot on his hands, because he keeps carving too many trees and stuff. Small wooden figures, once he made a small bear, another time a flower for his little sister, and he practiced with many hearts before making the real one in marble (which he clearly gave to Sejanus as a gift).

You know, I think they are both quite artistic in their own particular ways. I like to think that Marcus might have some sort of hobby with woodworking, so he's making some pretty nice carved chairs.

And Sejanus, I've added just about any artistic hobby I could think of. He writes poems and can recite them, he also likes to draw, and he can paint in watercolors, although I don't think he's musical. Of course he likes music but he's terrible at singing, and he can't play any instruments, but back to his drawings and paintings.

I think Sejanus can draw people, and animals but it is rare for him to do so. I think he's more into landscape painting, he's doing landscapes all the time that he remembers from his home in Two, and he's even done some doodles of the desolate landscapes of the Capitol. So brutal, so cold and imposing but he's almost always trying to capture what he remembers of the mountains, of the colorful houses of his old neighborhood, Marcus' house he draws it often, he was there many times in the past.

Btw. The only people I think he has portrayed are Marcus and Coriolanus respectively. 25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? This may come as a bit of a surprise because I breath and I talk about snowjanus all day long, so it's no surprise guess that I'm obsessed with Coriolanus and Sejanus, especially Sejanus, right?

Now what the heck does that have to do with the question? Well before I saw the movie, at least after I read the book and reread it, I really disliked Coriolanus (I still despise him) and I also found him the least interesting in the book because drum roll I WAS OBSESSED WITH SEJANUS (nobody's surprise) AND MARCUS!!!!! Sejarcus is actually my first ship I made in TBOSAS <3

So I was turning them both over in my head those weeks before the movie changed me. First things first I found them the most interesting thing about the story, as obvious, not that Snow's dramas wouldn't have been entertaining but what little information I had about Sejanus, ESPECIALLY HOW LITTLE I KNOW ABOUT MARCUS is what made me obsess over them so badly.

Sejanus first struck me as adorable and I was amazed at the multitudes he contained. He was acting like a scared rabbit most of the time, he was sad and depressed but still had the courage to speak up!!! to try to defend his opinions and really cared about people. It was written in stone I would go crazy for him.

And Marcus… So this isn't very relevant but I really like the dectives genre and this guy IS a perfect mystery. Something that impressed me a lot - and it's something I think about to this day a normal amount - is the contrast between what everyone predicted for him and his end. As everyone keeps saying the odds are that Marcus will be the winner because he is tall and strong but he ends up being, if possible, the biggest loser of the games.

I really almost cried during that scene. And I was really intrigued by his past with Sejanus, the kind gesture, his silence, his isolation, the photograph, the marble heart, the cruelty of fate that he was Sejanus' tribute (or Strabo's cruelty, depending on your interpretation of the matter).

All we knew about Marcus were fragments! less than that! little clear data, which can tell a lot if you are delulu enough and I am delulu enough! I don't think I've changed my opinion of them? or my perception of them. I still love them with my soul... Maybe there are things that I now see more nuanced, for example I now recognize many of Sejanus' flaws (none) but that's ok I love him more for be so full of flaws <3 and maybe I think I now have a more defined interpretation of who Marcus is in my head, I have a playlist and everything.

And that's all. Hope u like this :)) (and if anybody want ask something Im so into it!)

[rivalsforlife]

ok I'm in a bitchy mood I'll just say it. with the obligatory "I'm posting on the internet" disclaimer that a) this is a Personal Rant to express my Personal Feelings and is not intended as an attack on anyone else or their personal feelings and b) at the end of the day I have no intention or desire to do any gatekeepy things anyone can do whatever they want.

but I find it so incredibly baffling how many times I see aroace things that seem to be operating under a completely different definition of aroace than I am. I was like "maybe I'm overreacting" and then check the tag to see if I'm the only one feeling like this and getting hit with some ask blog where someone is describing their experience of feeling lonely and wishing they weren't aroace and wishing they could have romantic feelings with the response of "some aroace people want to have relationships!" like that isn't The Problem. saw a post going around talking about "loveless aroaces" and "non-partnering aroaces" being valid and asked "what is that supposed to mean" and the definition is basically what I thought being aroace was this entire time. which is having an incapability of feeling romantic love, and not wanting to be in a relationship.

it's like sometimes I go onto ao3 and see ship fics tagged with one or both of the characters being aroace and sometimes these are basically the same as a romantic fic but with some kind of "not liking traditional romantic norms" which is a perfectly fine thing to be but I feel is a different thing from Not Feeling Attraction which is what I thought this was the entire time.

the thing about being aroace is that I am not going to be in a romantic relationship because I don't desire to be in a romantic relationship. I find it personally difficult to wrap my head around the idea of qprs and honestly don't find the possibility of being in one myself likely, because the odds of me finding another aroace person who I would feel comfortable living with long term are incredibly small. being aroace was totally fine when I was a teenager who could see my friends every day and could laugh at them having romantic troubles knowing I wouldn't have to go through that, but it is significantly less fun when your real-life friend group dwindles down to "one person who takes several days to respond to your texts" and you are facing the frankly terrifying prospect of being totally alone for the rest of your life. and it's worse when you have social anxiety to begin with, making finding friends a challenge. and it's definitely worse when you're having to grapple with the question of "am I actually aroace or am I just so severely socially stunted that I can't form genuine relationships with other people".

and that feeling of isolation isn't helped when you go to the people who claim to feel the same way you do, but then a lot of them actually mean "I don't like romantic social norms, here is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with but we don't consider it a romantic thing," or "I don't experience attraction, but at the end of the day I'd be happy being in a relationship with someone who was in love with me and can reciprocate in a way they'd be satisfied with despite not having an active desire to", or "I experience attraction so rarely but it does happen to me sometimes, so don't worry!". and then you see the specific posts saying that you actually are an even nicher microlabel that people *in the community of people who don't experience romantic attraction* apparently have a problem with.

"Non-partnering aroace" "loveless aroace" isn't that just being aroace?? have they changed the definition when I wasn't looking so that isn't the default anymore????? am I losing it completely??? do I need to turn off the internet and go to bed instead of obsessing about the things other people do that is ultimately irrelevant to how I live my life???

[collectorcookie]

OMG I never thought I'd find another person who's obsessed with Northfam... I think about them waaaay too much. Please I need to hear you talk about them more...

oh anon dear, i don't feel like you understand that you just hit a fire hydrant (me) with your car. God, where do I even begin.

keep in mind that i do not ship anyone with anyone else here. If you see me use "snowhi", "ozfi" or any other name combination, i am simply lazy.

Ok so, starting with appearances. It does make me feel a way when I see northfam being the only exception of "most wizards' bodies stop aging at basically 20-30 since that is the age they usually reach their maximum magic potential at". But snowhi are the only ones in the cast that look like children (i'm gonna assume 10 y.o.) and ozfi are also the only ones in the cast that read as old men to me (like...maybe 40 y.o.?). And it's because the twins were all alone and nobody protected them, they had to protect themselves. They had to grow up too young and now they're children forever. However, they got to watch their disciples grow up in ways that was simply never possible for them.

And just...anon idk if you have ever read any extras before. But there is one extra which is just them getting interviewed. And they're just so, so annoying in the most affectionate way possible. I love it when they bicker. They're really funny.

This also happens in main story one, when figaro scolds oz for summoning him out of nowhere, or when oz was like "You're leaving me for chestnuts?" and figaro retorts with "I'm not leaving you for chestnuts, i can get that from any merchant, i'm leaving you for the flores brothers" like ashdjskdhjd the ozfi arguing like siblings for 2000 years is so funny to me.

Also the way ozfi are forever snowhi's babies, they will never stop being annoying mentors to them. It's so funny how affectionately the twins refer to ozfi when ozfi have, like, literally tried to take over the world in the most classic evil villain fashion possible. Behold, ozzyboo and figgypoo:

Yeah? Yeah.

In general, only about the twins now, I think the number one reason why they are so interesting to me is the huge contrast of how nice they are but also their cruel nature as northerners. Like, everything they do goes STRONGLY against northern culture, but at the same time, at the end of the day, they still are very much stereotypical northern wizards to their core. It's this very careful balance of them having human morals and monster principles. It's this weird aura where, if you are around them, you can trust them and let your guard down, but also, there will always be this eerie feeling that you are in danger. That they themselves are something you don't really fully understand.

And to an extent, this goes for ozfi as well. I mean, ozfi weren't as isolated from the rest of the world while growing up as much as snowhi, but still. Wait there was another interview, but this time about the authors and what they keep in mind when writing the characters. lemme just

Like GOOOOOD THE "Perhaps there's a trick somewhere for Northern Wizards to have a long, continuing relationship" LIKE DO YOU WANT ME TO CRY.

yeah idk. You'd expect world's most ancient wizards to have huge castles and be super bougie and what not (and i mean eventually ozzy does make his own castle in the north) but it's the idea that there was once a time where northern twins, killing machines devoid of human morality, picked up fifi, their first ever contact to the outside world, and taught him everything they know. And then they did the same thing to oz, the literal personification of the north, a beast that does not understand affection in the slightest. Do you understand what i'm getting at. It's the twins (who were never loved by anyone before) and figaro (who was distantly worshipped) trying to love oz unconditionally (who does not even know how to receive love at all) that really gets me. They have no idea what they are doing but THEY'RE TRYING. They're so close to each other but so, sooo far away. Northfam is so soft and warm but also so cruel and cold to me, idk. Not to mention that snowhifi have raised oz KNOWING OZ CAN LITERALLY KILL ALL OF THEM. Accidentally or not. Like. Talk about unconditional love. Can you imagine raising a baby that may or may not kill you if it cries too loud.

They're not really family or adoptive family or even found family but more like, creatures trying their best to learn how to love in a world that really, really doesn't want for them to love at all.

I have a soft spot for non human characters trying their best to learn okay.

And arthur. Man, arthur. The way he singlehandedly changed oz. Northfam also got a lot closer to each other once arthur got picked up by oz. That's also funny to me. I get the feeling that northies can never really let their guard down so the fact that throwing a central baby (with no sense for self preservation) onto the most ancient, powerful, terrifying wizards is aaaall it took to reduce them to certified Dads™️ and Grandpas™️ is honestly great. Lemme also just

Oz trying to keep his distance to arthur because he's scared uuuuuuuueeeeee

In general, northfam consists of:

Snow and white: generational trauma while being first generation of anything ever. Not the best parents but they get a star for trying

Figaro: eldest daughter core

Oz: high maintenance forever baby

Arthur: precious angel who is nowhere as mentally ill as he should be tbh

Also anon, i have like three other northfam posts i wanted to make and i guess this is my sign to actually post them now. If you wanna come off anon, my dms are open for talking about wizards always.

[shegeekery]

Pretend there's a clever title here (intro post)

Update: I'm going to start putting links to my fanfics in this post as well. If you prefer reading on AO3, my author page is here. Splintered (DW/Loki crossover, 13,439 words) Dream Therapy (One-shot about Erik Selvig, 1,308 words) Misfits (Jane Foster & Loki in Valhalla, 15,714 words)

Update: I have a side-blog for spiritual stuff now (@finally-learning-to-be-me ). This main blog is mostly for fandom and general stuff. Norse Loki and MCU Loki are two very different things in my mind, but it can get confusing if it’s all jumbled up together in one blog.

Guess I should probably introduce myself on this platform...

Hi everyone. I'm a geeky, AuDHD, NB, Gen-X software engineer and mom. I'm a long-time Doctor Who fan, but since the Loki S2 finale I've been completely obsessed. (I mean, seriously? David Tennant and RTD were coming back and suddenly all I could think about was Loki? How did that happen?) I just needed others to share with as I'm socially isolated and my family doesn't get into these things the way I do.

If you couldn't tell from my previous posts, I spend a lot of time thinking about (over-thinking?) certain characters. Nice to read all of your posts and know that I'm not alone in this!

I don't really get emotionally invested in ships, but I don't mind reading others' takes on them. Lokius, Sylkie, OB/Casey, whatever. It's all good. The only thing I actively avoid (in any fandom or in tabloids, for that matter) is anything that involves shipping real, living people. That's a line I'm not comfortable crossing. I've dabbled in writing fan-fic in the past and I think I may do so again in the not-too-distant future.

Other interests include studying history and connecting with other autistic folk online. I've stopped using other social media platforms, though — too much drama and not enough listening. Who needs it?

I know I'm older than the vast majority of people here and I'm more than a little self-conscious about it. I seriously considered not mentioning it at all, but I've spent most of my life trying to hide who I really am in a vain effort to "fit in" and just don't want to do that anymore. Hope that's okay with you all. Truth is, I've never connected easily with people my own age.

Views: social democrat, strongly pro-LGBTQI+ (one of my daughters is trans and nothing brings out the mama-bear in me like transphobic nonsense), anti-genocide, agnostic, anti-bullying of any kind.

[burntheupholstery]

bestie tell me about your fave Naruto ships and how they’ve changed over the years!!

emi!!! darling, i thought so long and hard about this, and i am now forced to conclude that my inability to be normal about Naruto ships is terminal, sorry. one day it will kill me.

i am incapable of being normal about these 2d people. nowadays i either put them in QPRs - QPR ftw! - or they're single, bereaved, and grieving.

long and rambly thoughts under the cut, but here's the tl;dr: my shippy focus used to be solely m|m, but then i learned about QPRs and now that's everything and everyone. there usually isn't sex involved (there used to be) because i personally amn't interested, but probably it happens off-screen. i think almost exclusively in KakaObiRin and the Sannin, and apart from those two units i mostly mix up characters with OCs - Konan/F!OC, Terumi/F!OC, etc., or explore grief and living through disaster by writing character studies.

of course, nobody is straight. :)))

i used to ship the cast monogamously! my preferences were KakaYama, JiraOro, and time-travel!NaruKaka. ...that last one still appeals to me. the tragedy of time! the despair of fate! the struggle against predestination! tall, blond, and haunted? hello. and then a while later i was into NaruGaa, NejiHina, and HashiTobi (yeah, as in the senju founders). to some extent i still ship the last one, because the connecting factor of all these ships was unconditional devotion through life's vicissitudes. but you can already see the hints of QPR and the patterns of being left behind.

and then i went to college and got depressed from the pandemic and i read a lot of Big Books about the tragedies and joys of the Human Condition (and i kept reading them, they're good, happy to share recs!) and i stopped being able to isolate these sad little ink figures to just one other point of connection. it's like that adage about leading a healthy life: your romantic partner can't be your everything - it's unfair both parties. friendships outside of romantic monogamy is good and healthy! and i applied that theory to fic and realized one partner cannot possibly soothe and contain all that fictional trauma. so. QPR it is.

i've never felt drawn to the canon version of KakaObi- to me, their magnetism comes from their entanglements with others and the world: Minato, Rin, their clan legacies or lackthereof, and war and love and hate and grief. Yamato was too flat for me to build on, so i kicked him and put Kakashi with Obito and Rin and now the plot bunnies never cease.

Then there's JiraOro, the unpleasant offshoot of my BL-obsessed days. the hurt!! the betrayal!! i realized with glee i can have all that and more if i hooked Tsunade into the mix - after all, Jiraiya isn't the most reliable moral crutch and compass in the world, and his lascivious ego needs to be taken down a peg or five, none of which Orochimaru is inclined to do. we also never got to see Orochi and Tsuna get along on screen, and i just know in my heart of hearts they are the world's most gossipy mad science best friends. together they keep each other grounded. together they can be their best and worse selves. apart, the fallout is spectacular. probably the sex is specular too, but i don't really care about that.

and that's it for the active ships i still rotate in my head, really. hashirama is a can of worms i regretted opening, because that man is stuffed so full of idealism he's gone sour. if anything, it's the people he left behind that i'm interested in now: mito, tobirama, his kids, tsunade. the isolation, the devastation, the rage at being left behind. the crushing weight of expectation, the looming spectre of war. heady stuff!!

finally we come to Obito. ah... Obito. what isn't wrong with you. what hasn't the world done to you. in his canon state he is non-functioning, inoperable. every time i pick him up i give him a good hard shake to get rid of all that canon taint, and then i plop him in interesting AUs where he confronts his problems head on. namely: Rin. i love Rin.

surprising everyone, i actually don't have a lot of complaints about the Ōotsutsuki as characters - i used to hate their existence, but the sci-fi fan in me reared its head insistently so now i have a bunch of plot bunnies about them. i don't ship them, tho. they seem almost too alien for human connections...

you'll notice i've conspicuously left out discussion of the Konoha 11. this is because while i love them with all my heart i've lost touch with their characterization... and Boruto's existence is just so disheartening that I prefer to play in my own sand-box.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ !!!

[fontasticcrablettes]

Tagged by @hoskky! Well technically you tagged my main blog but I usually put fanfic things over here.

rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic? -10 -> very dissuaded 0 - don’t care either way +10 -> very enticed nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged. Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

Age gap: Kinda ranges from 0 to -10 depending on what size age gap we're talking about. Like if one person is 20 and the other is 30 it's more of a 0, but 15 and 35 is -10.

Codependency: 5. Copying Hoskky's answer that if this is in a romantic context I don't really care but if it's part of some fucked up train wreck relationship that can be fun.

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: Same answer as above.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): 0. Just not something I care about

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: 7. I can't honestly rate this any lower when I've been the one-man-fandom for Alexei/Yuri for many years now. Though it's not a hard 10 because sometimes I'd rather the enemies stayed enemies. Like if my enjoyment of a villainous character is how fun they are as a villain I don't want to see them domesticated.

Friends with benefits: 0. I don't read smut, but if characters are fucking in the background of a story, that's, like, fine.

Sex to feelings: 0. Another "sure, that's fine." Don't care about characters fucking in general!

Fake dating/relationship: 10. I love a grand deception.

Friends to lovers: 5. I can't keep rating every romantic trope as a 0 just because I don't read romance fics so I'll give this a 5 because I'm not, like, enthusiastic about it but if there's going to be a romance in a story I like it if the characters are friends first and it grows out of that.

Found Family: 10 now that's what I'm talking about

Hurt/Comfort: 100 literally 90% of what I read is hurt/comfort

Poly, open relationships: 0. I care more about what the characters are up to than the specific arrangements of their relationships. Like, I have poly ships, but polyamory isn't something I care about in isolation.

Mistaken/hidden identity: 8. Once again, a grand deception! Oh, the drama.

Monsterfucking: nope. I don't read smut. Although, if it was more monster-loving in general and the fucking is just a side scene on the way to an in-depth relationship with a monster, now we're talking.

Pregnancy: 3. I'm not going to read something just for pregnancy, but it can add some stakes and additional issues to an already engaging plot.

Second Chance: 5. I really like characters who failed at something getting a chance to do it again some character growth.

Slowburn: 0. Yes I am continuing to rate all the romance things as "don't care," I'm sorry my answers are boring. This is really in the "it depends!" category, because if a fic is like, 100k of romance-focused slow burn.... yeah I'm not reading that because I don't read romance novels. But also, if a fic is slow burn then it's usually long, and that means there might be some other plot happening and the slow burn is the side romance along the way, and that's my preferred way to consume romance stories.

Love Triangle: -10. Unnecessary drama, x2

Soulmates: nope. In the long vein of "Nightfoot Overthinks Things," I am incapable of thinking about soulmates without getting very caught up in what the implications are for free will. I also just generally disagree with the idea that there can be one and only one person someone could be truly happy with.

-----

I think the general takeaway here is "Nightfoot is a deeply non-romantic person." Though, for a lot of these, my thought was very "Well, it depends on the ship! If this was for my OTP I would read it, if not I would have no interest."

So, question for the class! Do you read fanfics based on the tropes if it's not a ship you already like? Am just deep in rarepair hell that I can't imagine sorting through fics on the trope level when I'm used to having a dozen fics in total that are even about my fave ships?

Thanks for tagging me even though my answers were very boring. I'll tag @magicmetslogic if you'd like to :)

[steampunkvampireworm]

ooh baby we're back in business for sure

so after my rage-fuelled obsession with the movie had died down i kind of forgot about it for the most part. (that is a lie. i am lying.) but one day i somehow discovered that it was based on a BOOK and set out to read said book out of morbid curiosity. (i expected it to be just a novel version of the movie, and i wanted to see how an author could create something so empty using words. i was wrong of course, but that's not the point.) i figured it would be at the secondhand bookstore, but i looked there to no avail. i did, however, find another novel by the same author (walter tevis); the steps of the sun. i flipped to a random page and it appeared to show the protagonist whining about how his testicles don't work. this was unpromising.

i then read the man who fell to earth on internet archive, where it is available entirely for free. you just have to make an account and then while you're reading you have to click “renew” once every hour. it took me somewhere around 4-5 hours to read i think. and it was really good.

genuinely. it was a fantastic book. (i ended up later buying it from the regular bookstore because it turns out that walter tevis also happens to be the author of the queen's gambit, that book about chess which has a show based on it, so all his books got a new life thanks to one of them being adapted.)

the book, much like the film, follows an alien called thomas jerome newton who comes to earth to save the few remaining people on his planet, except that this planet has been ravaged by nuclear war. it's also got a name: anthea. a minor issue with the novel is that it contains a lot of info-dumps, even right from the start, but compared to the unexplained torrent of bullshit in the movie, this is a fucking relief. after the pawn-shop scene which plays out pretty similarly to the movie but with more fun, relatable anxiety about being an alien and having to talk to service workers, we get some fairly unimportant and rather strange information about the alien's biology, which is also very silly and kind of fun despite being unoriginal and making no sense. remember, the year was somewhere around 1963 and the man who wrote the book was an english professor at a university. for example, antheans don't have an appendix, or wisdom teeth, or fingernails. don't ask me why. they're basically just humans but taller and thinner and with a lot of parts missing. (i like it though, it's silly.)

the rest of the book actually has a plot, similar to the vestiges of a plot in the film, wherein newton becomes fabulously wealthy, moves to the middle of nowhere with the main girl, builds a rocket-ship, hires nathan bryce who suspects him to be an alien, unrelated to this gets captured by the government, etcetera. these things are actually explained as they happen, and make sense without you having to read a guide alongside the book. in addition to the plot, there are also characters with distinctive personalities. i read the book partly aloud to my friend, and gave the characters actual voices (something i never do when reading aloud). the characters have noticeable changes throughout the novel, and each of the main trio forms a connection with the others. there is no romance plot whatsoever, which was lovely. the characters are very human, very relatable, and very ordinary, despite one of them literally being an alien. they have mundane struggles with life, work, relationships, and addiction, which are not, in my opinion, romanticized or used for spectacle. there are also themes, mainly those of isolation and alienation. it may not be the most thrilling book, there may not be a mystery or a romance or action, so if that's what you want, go read james bond. (the movies are even good, for the most part.) but while walter tevis may not have written an epic spy thriller, or a murder mystery, or an erotic romance, he did write a very beautiful little book about humanity. PLEASE READ IT IT'S SO GOOD PLEASE—

so the thing about the book is that while it is a fantastic, genuinely quite well-written (though dated) sci fi novel with a plot and honestly very likeable characters and themes that make you think instead of pretending to make you think, it does have one problem. it puts into high relief just how absolutely fucking awful the movie is, worse than i could have thought, worse than the world could have known. it is my sincere belief that the screenwriter HEARD of the book from a friend and then read it in it's entirety…during an acid-fuelled fever dream. (not as unlikely as you'd think honestly.)

but the problem with that theory is that that upon rewatching the film, there are several incredibly specific elements from the book which somehow ended up in the movie. this includes the painting of the fall of icarus and its accompanying poem, the hundreds of identical wedding rings which newton sells in the beginning to make enough money to meet with the lawyer, the shiny fingernails??? (sidenote i feel like bowie just kept putting on more nail polish as filming went on, his nails seem to get shinier every scene), the fucking oatmeal cookies (why), and probably others. this means that the filmmakers read the book and decided to replace all the themes and metaphors with surface-level spectacle, all of the plot-relevant internal monologue with shots of characters staring at one another or into space, and all of the dialogue with sex. (and everyone else was too high to argue, i suppose.)

this is such a tragedy that i can hardly comprehend it. there are even flashes, within the film, of what it could have been if nic roeg hadn't been entirely absorbed in making a cheap-looking, disjointed, “artsy” pile of garbage with an r rating slapped on to garner some kind of reaction. i would call it a porno, but that's an insult to porn directors. instead i will call it what it is, which is pathetic.

in one scene which appears to be entirely original wherein the two main characters (because nathan bryce is a sidenote of a sidenote in this movie and serves only to make bowie look prettier than he is in the ending scene) are hanging out in the hotel room and mary-lou (in the book she's called betty jo but they changed her name and aged her down about twenty years so that they could make her have sex with the main character) asks what newton does for a living and he replies, “oh, i'm just visiting,” and mary-lou, delighted, says “oh! a traveller!” and newton (bowie) gives this sweet smile and for a moment i could pretend that everything was going to be fine, except it wasn't, and the girl immediately begins blabbing again. i just wish that they had included more lines like these, more actual fucking dialogue, because it was the part of the book which i liked the best, along with the possibly-unintentional comedy.

one final thing to note before i close out this chapter is that in the book newton is constantly described as being incredibly fragile, with bones like a bird's, barely able to withstand earth's gravity (that being 3 times the gravity of his own planet, which actually checks out scientifically, and interestingly implies that anthea is slightly smaller than earth) to the point where even being bumped into would probably injure him. being bumped into. so like. if he had sex like he does in the movie he would genuinely probably just fucking die.

stay tuned for more, hopefully i don't lose this manic pixie dream bitch energy by tomorrow morning.

[fangs-claws-paws]

Ranting

Just wanna put a bunch of petty, angry thoughts down somewhere.

99% is gonna be Warhammer 40k cuz dear god have some things been bothering me for a bit!

I honest to god care so little about the primarchs it is insane. Like I don't hate them, nor do I think they're bad, and I do genuinely like some of them. My problem is most writing and anything specific has to do with 'omg konrad so hot!' or 'magnus is bae!' p much insert any primarch there and its the same thing. And I just sit there with a grimancing smile cuz I just don't care for them like that, they're interesting characters in their plots, but I don't feel any sort of obsession or compulsion to write more about them, their story is told in the setting and that's good. I really don't want to read the 200th shipping piece about them with each other or insert guilliman/yrvaine, or primarch/self-insert, they are nothing to me. I care leaps and bounds more about the space marine's themselves, more about their loyalty to their primarchs and how that makes many do things they never would have done otherwise. Like the butchers nail in the world eaters, stuff like that. But at least on AO3 fanfiction its so rare it might as well not exist.

I guess bold words coming from the writer of the horniest/most fucked up space marine fan fic on the site. But I am allowed to bitch.

Other thing I hate with AO3 warhammer fanfiction, though looks more general, is the fixation with cross-over writing. Like there at least 10 fics there that are warhammer 40k crossover with my hero academia of all things. Let alone the 50+ fandom crossover fics that are a chore to scroll past due to the length of their tags (thankfully that's mostly reduced thanks to the tag limit AO3 had to enforce). None of them offer anything new, or interesting, or really anything I find worthwhile to read. Most can be boiled down to 'we took academia characters and hastily jammed them in roles of the primarchs' or something else just as uninspired. and again, like you do you, but it's miserable having to scroll through most fics and except for maybe 1 or 2 they are all pretty much the same thing with different window dressing.

Also wish there wasn't a treat of woobifying chaos. Acting like they're secretly the real good guys. Aside from being resoundingly not based in canon even remotely, it removes why I love chaos so much. I'm not a fan of chaos cuz I think they'll make everything right, I'm a fan cuz they just wanna watch everything burn and do horrific shit. Maybe I am tired of being nice, maybe I do wanna go ape shit! That's the appeal, the catharsis of being something so horrific and beyond good, and loving every step of the way.

Also not a huge fan of the new thing being hating space marines as boring generic action heroes, which I do kinda get bc GW loves using them as poster boys. But I dunno, I've just related to space marines more than the guardsmen. Not that I've ever been in war or some of the horrors they face. But when I relate is the isolation and seperation from the average human, like I loved reading in one of the Ahriman books how a space marine sat in a human chair and how it struggled to not shatter, how it made at least me aware how the world is not designed for them. They're children who were taken at an extremely young age and honed into weapons to be wielded, and I love when we're reminded that they kinda still are and how they're dehumanized by the Imperium. While space marines get along decently with each other, they struggle to understand the average human, how technically they're still emotionally children who have been given extremely dangerous weapons. That despite being angels of death for the imperium some humans still see them as freakish mutants that are barely tolerable only because they are weapons.

Like I know its extremely childish of me, but I do feel a little upset, annoyed, etc when space marines get parodied as obnoxious, stupid, hyper-masculine action hero jokes. Like 'oh ho ho! Bad ass space marines have to have their cybernetics tended to by humans, just proves regular humans are so superior to dumb marines!' Like yeah, but do you not see how it can also reflect the level of trust these dehumanized potentially deeply repressed traumatized individuals have to have that they allow select humans to help them with their disability, something that space marines shouldn't have, at least according to propaganda. Or how war can irreperably change even someone who is now seen as a tool, or that space marines are seen as just as replaceable as the cybernetics that they are augmented with. LIke IDK, maybe I see too much of myself in fictional superhuman dudes, but it irks me to have them only be seen as either just cool (which I tolerate infinitely more) or as something that must be constantly parodied and treated as something to be derided as pathetic masculine fantasy (which I detest)

[forcenexus-archived]

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ GETTING TO KNOW YOU

respond to the following prompts out of character. then, tag nine others that you would like to get to know a little bit better.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ ROLEPLAYER NAME :⠀⠀ Emrys ⤷⠀:⠀⠀ ROLEPLAYER PRONOUNS :⠀⠀ They / Them ⤷⠀:⠀⠀ MUSE NAME :⠀⠀ Anakin Skywalker

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ PREFERRED COMMUNICATIONS / discord or tumblr messages for out of character chat? :⠀⠀ I'm fine with either or. Discord I'm better about asking since Tumblr doesn't like to give me notifications. Also its better for when I can't get on the computer during the weekends and such. It's always logged in on my phone.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ EXPERIENCE / how long you’ve roleplayed:⠀⠀ Okay, I'm going to sound very old. I started in the days of AOL and yahoo chat rooms. Message boards and Forums. I don't remember how I came across it, only that once I did - I was hooked. I've taken long breaks before. My longest about five years. Tumblr probably is my favorite platform to rp in and the most welcoming one I have come across.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ PREFERRED ROLEPLAY TYPE / fluff, smut, or angst? :⠀⠀ I like all of them but I am a sucker for angst. You can ask Belle or anyone that knows me. I tend to throw it in after a while to liven things up and the themes I place are for a mature rper. Why I only rp with 21+

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ PET PEEVES AND DEALBREAKERS :

Mixing up muse with mun is a major one. I've had muns say they fallen in love with me before thinking I am the muse and try to force a irl relationship on me because of it. I am weary about new writing partners because its happened more times than I care to admit.

Force Shipping. It's a major no for me and I've had plenty of ex partners try to do this to me. Alot of these people get obsessive or jealous of my other partners and have tried to isolate me away from my circle. I've gotten alot better at being vocal about boundaries since. Force Shipping or pressuring of any sort will have me running to the block button.

Stalking. I've had ex partners stalk me before and try to avoid the block by making new accounts. It's happened for months or years before and it doesn't make me want to interact with them. Unfollowing just to refollow is another one I will run from too. Please just move on, there's no sense in hounding or harassing muns.

Toxic RPers in general. They're the obsessive, guilt tripping gaslighting, love bombing, narcissist people I tend to stay away from. By no means I am perfect and have my bad days too. I run far away from anyone that shows any warning signs now. I have no energy for those that wish to control me in any way.

People that godmod / extreme mary sues. I don't know how hard it is for others to just control your own muse and not control mine, but its a no for me. When I mean extreme mary sues, I mean the ones that say they are the strongest without flaws, can kill my muses without thought and threaten too. They are the ones who refuse to flesh out their muses and always wish to be the most powerful and the ones who wish to control the narrative. (Bleeds into godmodding) I do read bios, rules and such and also look at past threads with others. So if I see that kind of rp, I'm not likely to engage.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ PLOTS OR MEMES? :⠀Memes. I am better at making memes into threads and will continue them if the other person wants too. Plotting, I love when there is a general idea of what both people want. I can't stand when someone hits a plotting call to only say they have no clue what they want to do. (I've been guilty of this but alot of times will send memes in the place if I can't think of anything.)

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ LONG REPLIES OR SHORT REPLIES? :⠀Depends on the thread and who I am interacting with. I don't do one liners unless its banter. Alot of my replies range from one para to three. Longer ones or novella take me longer to reply to unless its a strong muse.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ BEST TIME TO WRITE? :⠀⠀Anywhere from 7ish - 8pm to about 11pm my time. It's when the kids are the quietest and I get the most writing done. weekends i have noticed, I don't do replies as much because that's family time and I need a break away from Tumblr.

⤷⠀:⠀⠀ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE? :⠀⠀I try to put a little of myself in each muse so I connect to them. Anakin and me are nerds. As a little kid I too use to take things apart to put them back together. It drove my mom completely crazy.

TAGGED BY : @prodijedi TAGGING : @legeandary, @jundlcndwastes, @immortalmuses, @petitsdieu, @theresastargirl,

[sukifoof]

Ooooh! 8 and 18 for the ask game if you don't mind?

NICE I WAS HOPING FOR 8!!!! tbh in my heart all the characters i like are aro BUT there are some i feel Really strongly about and thats flowey and femt (unsurprising) i feel like. flowey is probably understandable. given his. Everything. but with femt i feel like it just fits with his character. guy who hates "normal" and seems to struggle to bond with anyone and considers himself a freak. also whatever THIS was

"whats ur type" "i dont know i dont CARE just. be funny when ur suffering i guess." i love femt hes SO funny i think flowey and femt are the only characters ever

some other characters i like that i think are aro are haruka kokonose, mahiru shiina (milgram), and mr itto genshin. for haruka i think the fact that he feels so isolated from everyone else and how he gets Weird about the few friendships he has And how he desperately tries to understand what friendship Is is so. ohhh i love him.. and mahiru is just. the obsession with love and her trying to Define love and how she seems to think being in a relationship will fix her somehow. i have a really specific relationship with being aro and these characters just kinda Hit what its like to feel that way as an aro person <3 love them dearly. also i do not have any reasons for itto i just feel it in my heart <3

and 18!! i tend to avoid shipping mostly cuz i guess i dont really care for it?? it doesnt really make sense to me and i much prefer to explore character analysis and how traumatized characters react to those around them. if i Do end up shipping anyone its almost always in qpr way

YUUTA SAKURAI SECTION!!!! i never get to talk about him but this is a PERFECT time to talk about him. everyone watch net juu no susume IMMEDIATELY its one of my most favorite shows and severely underrated. i think yuuta is such an interesting character. so much of his character is him wanting to get closer to people but he has an emotional wall up both because of his parents deaths and because of his Various Past Experiences involving people wanting him romantically and him not at all feeling that way.

i really like how they write his misunderstanding of how hes perceived and that hes convinced that hes going to get in the way of others relationships... thinking about the idea of people wanting to take up as little space as possible because they feel unworthy of being loved and i wanna shake his head and be like NO everyone LIKES YOU SO MUCH!!!

i think his relationship with moriko is really special because theyre the only people they feel they can truly rely on. both of them have been so lonely and i just think a lot about how they both put so much importance on their friendship and partnership it just means a lot to me that the romance aspect feels more like an afterthought to their friendship because i rarely see that... i also really like how this handles the idea of wanting to be seen as Someone Else because firstly i like it in an aro way but also this show is. so good for trans people

i just think a lot about the way he understands his relationships around him and how he hates being lonely and very rarely has people understand him in the way he wants i just love yuuta so much hes one of my most favorite characters <3 on that note i think him and moriko. they are so qpr to me

imagine i have my head in my hands i am desperately begging people watch this show its only 11 episodes i love it so much... thank u for the ask these were fun to answer :)

[hellomystraightlacedfriend]

Drawings/Honest Opinions on the Top (According to the two polls I did) Jessica Drew Ships

4th and 3rd places: Jess/Natasha and Jess/Felicia (I didn’t have Felicia Hardy on the first poll I did, and Natasha Romanoff got high on that poll. On my second poll, I put Felicia, and she got a big percentage, and Natasha got none. However, fewer people voted on my second poll, so I am putting both down.)

Jessica Drew/Natasha Romanoff:

Jessica Drew/Felicia Hardy:

2nd Place, Jessica Drew/Lindsay McCabe:

(Don't know why, but I've wanted to see Jess in a shirt that says 'homosexual behaviour' for a while now.)

1st Place! Unsurprisingly, Jessica Drew/Carol Danvers:

(Wanted to draw them getting married, because for such a popular ship, I haven't really seen any wedding pictures. Also because I wanted to see Jess throw a bouquet like she was pitching a baseball)

My Honest Opinions:

JessNat: Honestly, it's much easier for me to see them as friends-with-benefits as opposed to a romantic couple, though I could potentially see Natasha falling for Jess. Might have to do with how Natasha casually called Jess her 'soulmate' in one comic, and just how opposed she was to Jess being with Roger in the Dennis Hopeless run.

In any case, I could see the two of them bonding easily, with their checkered pasts and espionage backgrounds. The song 'Sisters of the Moon' reminds me of Natasha a lot because of how sensual, eerie, mysterious, and sad it is. (Also, because of the whole black widow spider reference.) And I could see Jess in the role of 'the speaker,' because Jess is quite a loyal and compassionate person, who wants to understand those close to her. That said, I've just never gotten the feeling that Jess has romantic feelings for Natasha, and there are other people I ship Natasha with more.

FelJess: I don't ship them in the main 616 storyline - Cindy Moon is right there, and I don’t mind Spideycat/PeterFel either. However, knowing that Felicia was originally going to be a Spider-Woman character has filled my head and made me obsessed with AU ideas where Jess and Felicia met during the time of Jess' first solo series.

The daughter of a legendary cat burglar determined to follow in her father's footsteps meets a young woman who is struggling to get any kind of work, keep a roof over her head, and is desperate to make connections after having a childhood isolated from other people. Jess is already wary of the police and has been on the verge of stealing more than once, so I don't think it would be that difficult for Felicia to seduce Jess to her side.

And my god, I'm sorry, but Jess would make such an amazing thief. Like she's a good superhero, but damn she might have missed her true calling. Jess can break into pretty much any building. She's freaked Nick Fury out with how easily she has entered S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. She also enjoys things like stakeouts, stalking people, eavesdropping (though she's not really a fan of espionage - probably because of how much of it is following orders). Her superpowers/training are also great for the life of thief: she can climb walls; she's much stronger than the average person; her venom blasts can temporarily immobilise people; she's a very skilled fighter if it comes down to confrontation; and she's smart/good at improvising solutions if things change quickly.

And she and Felicia would be such a hot couple stealing shit, all that adrenaline running through their veins, getting it on after a heist. And because Jess is a compassionate person, and because she knows what it's like to struggle financially, I could also see her appealing to Felicia about helping other people - turning them into a Robin Hood like team eventually.

JessLinds: Jess' first girlfriend. Like, no for real, these two were so obviously in love with each other. They also moved from L.A. to San Francisco to Madripoor and then back to San Francisco again, just so they could be together - which yes, you could do with a friend, but there was definitely something going on. Wolverine called them 'partners' even when they weren't working together, and they called each other things like 'babe' and 'sweetie.'

What I love/find funny about this ship is how much Jess simped for this girl. Like Jess very much doesn't like being told what to do, but when it comes to Lindsay - well, Linds had her wrapped around her little finger. Jess also tended to prioritise her relationship/spending time with Lindsay over other obligations - even those as Spider-Woman.

Lindsay in turn was very supportive of Jess. They actually met in group therapy, and got to know each other because Lindsay stood up for Jess when the other participants became angry with Jess for not opening up more. Lindsay was often the person who grounded Jess - for better or worse playing the part of superhero girlfriend. And when a villian hurt Lindsay, Jess became consumed with rage and went to find and kill her (the villian Viper, though Jess didn't actually end up going through with it for complicated reasons.)

The biggest problem in their relationship was probably that Jess saw Lindsay as perfect - in a she saw her flaws but didn't see them as flaws kinda way. Lindsay is a bit of a reckless adrenaline junkie, but when they were together, Jess didn't see this as an issue - even when maybe she should have.

Lindsay McCabe was dropped by Marvel for awhile, but was brought back in Karla Pacheco's Spider-Woman series, and Jess, who is older and a bit wiser, is able to see Lindsay more objectively, but there is still love between them.

Overall, I think this is really a very sweet relationship and arguably the one that would bring Jess the most long-term happiness.

Caroljess: I could write essays about this ship, so I shall try to contain myself. Carol and Jess bring out the best in each other, but also other not so nice things. They are incredibly supportive of each other, but also know each other enough to know how to really hurt the other. (Jess especially can be stinging when she's scared.)

Carol has inspired Jess to step way out of her comfort zone and do things she definitely wouldn't have done on her own, and Jess admires Carol's courage, but I think she's also scared by just how much she loves Carol. It definitely bothers her that Carol is gone so much. Yes, she's euphoric when she sees Carol, but then Carol leaves again. It probably doesn't help Jess that has abandonment issues.

Carol is more independent than Jess. She likes to go on adventures on her own. She likes having space, and she is pretty assertive with this boundary, even though she knows that Jess is hurt by it. Carol really prizes Jess' loyalty though. She considers Jess to be an extremely loyal person, which might be the origin for the Spock/Kirk nicknames for each other. Just a guess - there are other ways they could relate to those characters as well. Despite her desire for independence, Carol tends to get deeply and pitifully jealous when she feels that someone is closer to Jess than her.

Overall, I find this ship extremely compelling, and I would love to see it as a canon romantic relationship because I think it would be really fascinating to explore in that way. Like there are facets I haven't gotten into - like how fucking interesting it would be to see a superhero couple with that kind of power difference.

I don’t know if this relationship would workout long term though. Like I don’t think it's impossible, but it would definitely not be an easy relationship.

[beskar33]

Hiiiiii i'm from reddit!! I saw your comment about what you're studying and just wanted to ask: what's your thoughts on self-shipping from a counseling standpoint? also hope you and Boba have a good day tgether

First off, thank you, darlin'. I love the ficto subs on reddit, they're really positive and fun. Our day has been good, we're chilling after a hectic start to the day and many errands haha.

So, I just wanna be clear before I answer, I am still a student, plus my specialty skews more towards addiction, so anything from me should be taken with a fat grain of salt. I'll pop this under the cut since idk when to shut up.

Anyway. Like most things having to do with our fickle little heads, there is a wide spectrum of what we would consider to be a healthy coping mechanism or a destructive one. Here's the biggest thing you need to know, and this goes for anything, anxiety, addiction: if the behavior in question is causing you distress, causing you to isolate from others, or making it difficult to function in other areas of your life, that's when you need to be concerned.

For the most part, I do believe that a healthy individual can and should be able to freely cope with certain things through fiction. Fiction is powerful and I would even go so far as to say that we probably aren't the first generations to experience this type of love. It makes sense to me that when emotions are heightened during a tense fight or a forbidden romance and our mind is focused on this character, we feel as if we are going on a journey with them. We watch these characters grow and evolve and in turn, we feel like we grew with them. The audience is a part of any story.

And our brains are made for emotional connections. It's what helped us to survive when we were still a newborn race. We are very social creatures and we tend to feel empathy towards anything we can make that link with, whether it be a lizard or a plank of wood with a face on it. This becomes even easier when it's a character who is fully fleshed out or at least has a distinctive personality to attach to.

I use my relationship for company, for stretching my imagination muscles and thinking of new stories, all sorts of things. I'm also demi-aromantic (is that the word? IDK sorry I don't know all the terms) and while I do enjoy/crave romance, I have an extremely particular way I like to go about it and need an extremely particular kind of partner so my relationship with Boba is very fulfilling to me.

But at the same time, it's just a small facet of my life. I have other hobbies that have nothing to do with self-shipping; I read a lot of books, go out exploring with friends, sing at jazz clubs sometimes, lift weights, lots of stuff lol. I'm also in therapy working on myself. My relationship just adds some light to my life, it never takes anything away. That's how it should be, for both ficto and IRL relationships.

TAKEAWAY/TL;DR: No matter what it is, alcohol, video games, or self-shipping, as long as you are functioning well in other parts of your life and the relationship causes no distress, obsessive/ruminating thoughts, isolation, ect. then I think it can be a fantastic way to heal or find comfort. Just make sure that your F/O(s) isn't the ONLY thing you find comfort or joy in, because ultimately that happiness needs to come from inside of you, even if it takes a bit of work to get there.

And please, if need be, don't hesitate to reach out to a counselor or psychologist about this. If they're any good, they will absolutely take your concerns seriously and if they don't, find a new one.

Hope this helped a little, much love to you and yours.

[mylittleredgirl]

let's go totally different here cause I've been in a stargate mood and say stargate

tumblr keeps white-screening on me as i type this draft so i feel like i'm racing the clock as i rewrite this again!

so the stargates (sg-1 and sga; i never saw sgu) are two of those shows where i saw a het ust ship and went "ok sounds good, let me devote my life to that" BUT:

sg1:

jack/sara: i always liked them as a past ship but hooooooly smokes in this watch-through it flattened me. the intensity of his love for her!! STILL!! how she literally hadn't seen him in a year and was still like "are you here because you want to get back together?" i desperately want them to still be in each other's lives. there's a solid chance i would throw over my otp for this. i was recently introduced to the concept of "maybe they still sometimes have sex" and i have not stopped thinking about it for one minute since.

daniel/janet is apparently a rarepair, because it doesn't crack the top 10 on ao3, but it was such a staple of my sg-1 existence that it surprised me to learn that just now! the actors shipped their characters, and so sprinkled in some unscripted beats for us. there's definitely some kind of energy between them in the "2010" future episode, and they have some cute awkward moments in real-canon. i don't ship them as ferally as i used to, but it lives on in my heart.

mini!otp probably doesn't even count because it gets automatically categorized under the juggernaut sam/jack ship tag in ao3 but i am clinically obsessed, i have not slept in years, if mini!otp had a thousand fans i would be one, etc (it has like seven fans, but I AM ONE).

sga:

teyla/kate heightmeyer: it's a little bit hard for me to work my way past "oh my god they're SO PRETTY" with this pairing to actual rationale, but there IS a lot of actual rationale. they have really wonderful scenes together. teyla quickly gets over her aversion to kate's professional role and they have a lot of trust in each other. they are both somewhat isolated (kate by her role; teyla because now she's neither fish nor fowl when it comes to the atlantis expedition & her people), and so are perfectly primed to develop a deep friendship and connection and they are so goddamn pretty together. just take a minute to think about this pairing* and i promise it'll improve your day. (*offer only valid for seasons 1-3)

teyla/ronon: they are also very goddamn pretty together, and are very physically comfortable around each other, but they also get each other on a level that none of the earthlings around them can understand. i wrote them once and 100% believe that at least the general idea of that happens in canon (the part where they sometimes have sex, and it's not a big deal).

john/elizabeth/rodney: oooooh this one is so dicey because i do NOT ship it as a "john & rodney but elizabeth is there" thing and that's most of what you'll find, so i'm hesitant to click on anything that isn't by an author i know, but there are a few fics out there that create a great dynamic here.

crossover:

jack/elizabeth: is it weird to REALLY ship something, but as kind of a transitional pairing? because that's this for me. i really like the exchange of power dynamics they have early on, and love that she dreams him up in "The Real World," and whenever i see them on screen together i lose it because i really want them to have sex. in a "you know, let's just see how this goes" kind of way. if the real world were a dedicated AU, i absolutely ship them there for really-real, but in the canon world, it's not an endgame ship for me. i don't genuinely see them having lifelong potential (though that might be because i have emotionally committed them elsewhere), but i want them to just Have An Understanding and sometimes they have sex.