#anyway this has such a beautiful vibe to it

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

i see there's shipping discussion occurring in your ask box so i figure i'll throw in my two cents as well!

i used to be a REALLY heavy shipper, in exactly that shallow "reduce their personalities to the concept of kissing each other" way that tons of people are complaining about. i wouldn't get into ship wars or harass people or anything, but i was totally the kind of person who you couldn't just have a level character discussion with— because i would be pretty intent on just going through the motions with whatever best friend or acquaintance I'd decided they had a huge crush on.

by contrast now my biggest most important "ships" end up all being somewhere between 3-5 people with a lot of care put into the nuances of each connection on the relationship chart— i still refer to them as poly ships (as a shorthand mostly), but of the 3 to 10 different relationships between the characters, i usually only see a few of them as romantic or sexual, with the majority a lot closer to a found family or queerplatonic sort of vibe

honestly i think the biggest reason for the reductive style of shipping was that 1) i wasn't as skilled a writer then as i am now, so i wasn't really sure how to really retain all of the features of a character that i liked, and 2) i wanted the biggest feelings IMMEDIATELY and there's some kind of instant gratification to shipping where the end goal is for them to kiss and you can just draw/write/think about them kissing and you're done.

it's kind of like the instant ramen of fictional relationships to me. it's kind of "one size fits all", low writing skill requirement, low effort, really really fast and easy, and ultimately not really that rewarding at the end of it. and just like how real actual ramen exists separately from instant noodle cups, it IS possible to write a really amazing and beautiful and deep romantic ship fic that successfully plays off of the kinds of people these characters are, but ramen still isn't the end-all be-all of relationships! there are so many different hypothetical dishes that could be made with the same characters!

and my personal favorite is polyqueerplatonic ships for this very reason, because with just a few characters you can get a whole diverse array of interactions and dynamics!!

anyway tldr; i think romantic shipping is fun, and even "cheap" reductive romantic shipping can be fun, but (to return to my instant noodles metaphor) it would be reasonably upsetting to attend an awesome community potluck only to find like 90% cup noodles. and the people serving the cup noodles frown at you whenever you ask if anyone's serving like, gourmet spaghetti or dumplings or something.

so just know that if you're bringing your silly "ouhhh they should kiss" fan works to the fandom, you're appreciated and I'm glad you're having fun, and if you're bringing the super precisely thought-out nuanced relationship fan works to the fandom, you are ALSO so appreciated and additionally i really wish there were more of you in my own fandoms.

flashbacks to the time i looked up a ship that i THOUGHT was pretty popular but it only had like 230 works on AO3 at the time and basically all of them were romantic instead of my hyper-specific one-sided queerplatonic one-sided fully platonic thing i had pictured in my mind....

Okay, as someone who has tried their hand at writing slow burn in the past, I totally get the instant gratification thing. "You know when would be a good time for them to kiss? NOW"

I'd get frustrated at my own characters for not just making out already and I was the one writing them not making out lmao

[pharawee]

—MEMORY IN THE LETTER · ทรงจำในอักษร · 6 April 2024

[kenobion]

Happy birthday Andrew Garfield!

[sandersontheside]

contrary to what you may think “I Won’t Say I’m In Love” from Hercules is not the Disney love song for prinxiety. the titular track from Beauty and the Beast is. not only because the lyrics hit:

“barely even friends/then somebody bends/unexpectedly/just a little change/small to say the least/both a little scared/neither one prepared”

“bittersweet and strange/finding you can change/learning you were wrong”

but also because Virgil is initially perceived by the other sides as a villain, as monstrous, and his arc is all about acceptance both from them and from himself, learning both to love and to be loved. Just like Adam/Beast. and because Roman is Belle coded—head in the clouds and obsessed with stories, craving adventure and desperately looking for something more than this provincial life. you get it.

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Ok I know I'm heavily biased here but like I kinda love that Astarion's romance is one of the few in this type of video game where you basically end up canonically unmarried and childfree in his "good" ending? Just travelling the world??

Like it's honestly the millennial dream lmfaoo cannot believe i chose what would undoubtedly be my favorite option, first try

[faaun]

the way that diff languages sound r so fascinating they're all different and all so vivid

[rustedrocket]

thinkin about these dudes as teens.. what're they up to, y'know? what're those kooky kids doin

[wall-e-gorl]

a doodle of a design for everly that i decided to be extra with

[mxnosferatu]

travel season is endlessly charming . many others have already said but i need to throw it out there: a genuinely fantastic show

[ubejamjar]

ffxiv rarepair week || jantoirel

artoirel's eyes are 'forget-me-not blue' and jandelaine could never forget them, forget him.

[kuromi-hoemie]

i got to spend the whole day with my manager!!! we got to carpool to one of our other offices in another city and had such a good fun day together!! counting the time in transit we worked like an 11 hour shift today but it didn't feel like it bc we had each other!!! i love her!!

i may have skipped a few steps between that last sentence and the rest of the post but too tired 2 fully articulate + just peruse the #mm (My Manager 🫶🏾 (⁠っ⁠˘⁠з⁠(⁠˘⁠⌣⁠˘⁠ ⁠)) tag.... also there's more in the op tags if this gets rb for some reason

[grimalkinmessor]

Sasha's got me thinking about Shadow and Bone again and once again I am reminded how much I adore Genya Safin. I'm sorry but the scene of her revenge reveal revolves in my brain hickory slow style all the time—her hissing "I poisoned my skin" when they asked her how she crippled the King echoing in my ears forever.

The ruthlessness!!! The fury!!! The patience!!! The poeticism!!! He could've saved himself at any time, and yet he did not!!!

The King took something from her, something precious, and so she set a poisoned apple in front of him knowing he wouldn't be able to refuse it.

All so she could steal something of his in return.

[nettlestingsoup]

simulation and summer beach nostalgia... that sounds delicious, is there anything you can tell us about it? <3

the basic premise (and bear with me here. just bear with me.) is that jisung died pretty young and his parents uploaded his consciousness to a simulation, and minho is the AI interface programmed to take care of him so that he doesn't get lonely. jisung doesn't know that he's dead, and from his perspective he just lives in a little house on the beach with minho and they watch the sea and collect shells and minho reads to him in the evenings and everything is good and the summer is beautiful.

spoiler: something external fucks with the simulation and jisung begins to realise where he is, while minho tries desperately to keep taking care of him. it's summer nostalgia that turns into the mild psychological horror of realising that your world isn't real, combined with the romance of realising that the person who's always taken care of you is still there and always will be.

it's a lot! i'm aware that it's a lot! but i am DESPERATE to try to write it because it could be stylistically fascinating <3

[talentforlying]

i'm riding the struggle bus rn and school has started back up with a vengeance, so things will be back to running on a queue for a hot minute around here. if you haven't heard from me in a second/i owe you a reply, i promise i'm getting around to answering messages again and i'm sorry about the delay! hope everyone's doing good!

[alexjcrowley]

My mind has been plagued by vision again I can't stop listening to (The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs without thinking of Nico Rosberg

[hopeinthebox]

late to the party as per but finally giving this one a go - AND pestering some music favs with a tag <33 @cordiallyfuturedwight @banghwa @thvinyl @aprylynn @pauls-mccharmly @monismochi @thatredwine @huhfeatjhope 💜 and anyone else who fancies a go