#and their own ships

[tennessoui]

going completely the opposite direction of water-themed here lol but: “bank the fire, fan the flames” for the fic title ask game?

I gotta respect the dedication to being the opposite!!! Gonna give you a totally water based au tho 😛

for this title I’d write a fic where obi-wan is a pirate captain and he keeps running into first mate!anakin all around the Caribbean and every time he tries to tempt him to join his crew, he could be his cabin boy, wink wink nudge nudge. It’s established banter that they take part in every time they run into each other

and then obi-wan hears on one of his shore leaves that anakin has actually led a mutiny against his old captain and now anakin is captain even though he’s so young and obi-wan’s a bit proud of him, honest, his ferocious little darling pirate captain

still doesn’t change their banter that much when their ships run up against each other. now obi-wan just gets to bemoan that they could have had it all, if only anakin had jumped ship to join obi-wan’s crew

Anakin does not like this teasing because he is a fierce captain now and he’s trying to establish his reputation. He thinks slamming obi-wan up against a wall of some brothel and putting his sword to his neck will intimidate him but honestly captain kenobi is more turned on than he’s ever been before

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[becuzmdsaidineededpersonality]

[just-a-random-bakugo-stan]

Fanfic so good you gotta stop and scroll on social media to not get overwhelmed

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as you’re not romanticizing it”

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as it’s your way of coping with your trauma”

“you can write non-con and dark fics as long as —”

actually, anybody — including you — can write non-con and dark fics, and any other fucked up things, however they want, for whatever reasons.

wanna romanticize the fuck out of your non-con / dead dove do not eat fic? go ahead. don’t let anybody stop you from creating the art you want to create.

wanna write non-con fic even if you were never a victim? go ahead. you don’t have to meet any specific criteria in order to create the art you want to create.

just tag your works properly so that you don’t accidentally expose those who might not want to be exposed to such topics to the topics, and you’re all good.

art does not have to be for everybody.

art has never been strictly about rainbow and sunshine. art can also be about the horror and the macabre.

art can be outright disgusting and messed up, and being disgusting and messed up can be just what makes the art a masterpiece.

write whatever you want to write and say fuck you to censorship.

[k62256]

excalibur :)

[hanjoj]

their ship name might as well be theseus the way there's not a single original characteristic left there

[the-bar-sinister]

That fic you wrote?

The one about the ship no one else cares about, or the deeply unpopular character, or the extremely unusual AU?

The fic that got no comments or kudos when you posted it?

Months or years from now, that fic might be exactly what someone is looking for in the sea of fics about all the popular characters, ships, and AUs.

Your fic might be the only fic out there that has what someone is looking for. The only fic that scratches the itch that it turns out you and that reader share.

And that's awesome.

[cronchy-baguette]

When all this is over, will you stay with me? For good?

[frontmansdefender]

✨ in this house it’s always fuck censorship ✨

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Y'all what if I told you I ship Pyramid Steve with Stan like fr now

[valtsv]

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Mel and Viktor being drawn to each other but repelling each other at the same time... Ughhh you know I critique the fuck out of the writing sometimes but someone COOKED HERE

[noopypng]

nice moment before the inevitable

[bean-spring]

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.