#but more and more i'm finding i prefer both of them to purely canon content

[blindmagdalena]

Did you or do you ever struggle writing character x reader fanfiction? I read it quite a lot but I just can't get used to writing in that format. I'm writing an OC x Homelander story, though.

I had never created an OC before, but I am certainly more comfortable writing a character that has a name, face and backstory of their own than using a generic reader. Particularly when I'm writing about the character's past and other individual characteristics, addressing the reader as you seems so weird to me. It makes me feel like I can't give in to specifics because it breaks the illusion.

Also, I've enjoyed the act of creating an OC. Giving them a name, a story, motivations, designing their psychology, etc.

However, I find it discouraging to see that OC x HL stories are nowhere near as popular as HL x Reader and I worry that I may not find an audience. When I post anything in ao3 it gets like two likes and in tumblr I'm just ignored completely 😢

Could you please give me some advice pls?

oh my darling! i hear you. the disparity in interest between x oc content vs x reader content is undeniable, but it's also inevitable. all the reasons you describe struggling with reader perspective fics is why it's so popular: the lack of detail allows the reader to adopt a nebulous perspective, whether they see their own oc in that situation or their literal selves. it doesn't require them to get to know or become invested in your creation, it allows them to indulge in what feels like their own.

i don't think readers get enough credit for their suspension of disbelief and the mental work they put into filling in the blanks that authors leave. similarly, it's absolutely difficult to tell a compelling story while leaving what is often the perspective character a near blank slate. that said! the fics i get the most feedback on are where the reader does have a stronger personality. people love banter, and even if the reader's voice doesn't always feel like something they would actually say, it always produces much more engaging interactions.

i've definitely had my struggle with this in the past, but i'm still learning. the series i'm working on right now, Guilty Pleasures, features a reader with quite a lot of personality, and i've established things about her that i wouldn't normally go into such detail, and the response to it has been great! your reader perspective SHOULD still feel like a character with thoughts, motivations and feelings. otherwise, the story is going to fall a little flat.

if it's easier for you to write the reader perspective as if they're your oc, you should do that. there's a delicate balance between too much and too little information when it comes to reader fic. sometimes taking liberties really works, and i think you'd be surprised how well readers can stretch that illusion. reader perspective should resonate, but not be so overpowering that the actual person reading doesn't like them.

but you absolutely do not need to force yourself to write a particular style of story if it's not something you actually enjoy. i also write and enjoy oc fic! i honestly think my oc fic Eat Your Ego is some of my very best work. unfortunately, it's rare that any of those chapters ever break close to 100 notes, whereas even little reader drabbles will see 2-3x those numbers, sometimes more.

but i write it because i love it, and it's the story i want to tell. that's what matters! and because of my dedication to the story, people have been kind enough to trust me with their time and investment. oc fic will never have the same broad appeal that reader fic does, but that doesn't make it less valuable. you just have to invest more in promoting yourself and convincing people that your story has something to offer them.

my best advice is just don't give up! i'm horribly erratic when it comes to the creative projects i work on, but i've been writing Eat Your Ego for over a year and it has gathered a lovely little following. feedback on that fic means SO much to me. even though there's less of it, the joy it brings me is immeasurable because that fic is special to me. don't give up on your story! it deserves to be told. 🖤

[thespianinthebackcorner]

I'm pretty sure Squid Sisters were already pretty popular back in the Splatoon 1-Splatoon 2 days. After all, their relationship, agent lives and family drama was the main focus of the plot (among saving the squid society). And even nowadays, people still love them. They're THE Splatoon icons. Have you forgotten how people went crazy over the Reporter Callie outfit? There were fanarts everywhere!

Off The Hook are also really interesting - they played a huge part in Octo Expansion (you know, the DLC with the biggest, darkest, most liked lore and aesthetic?) and in Side Order, we also know their backstories (especially Marina's backstory is pure fanfic material, people love the angsty deserter trope + she was a breath of fresh air and a mystery as a first important non-enemy octoling character ever). Not to mention that they're literal canon lesbians with healthy and interesting dynamics.

What do we know about Deep Cut?? They've got nothing going on. They were villains in the Splatoon 3 storymode but mind you, not even the main villains. They grew up together, they come from some prestigious families that aren't mentioned ANYWHERE outside of the Sunken Scrolls, we know nothing about them. They don't have backstories, they don't have interesting dynamics (they're just 3 random people and their bond isn't even shown to be that strong, of course people prefer the SS family drama or OTH lesbian romance). Deep Cut is boring, of course people don't care about them, don't blame us, blame Nintendo for neglecting them.

Also, stop acting like you're better than others because you don't care about the icky romance and give deserved equal attention to every poor idol that gets overshadowed by the lesbians. People DO care about other Splatoon characters. There are fanarts of the Agents (Agent 24 is problably the second most popular ship right after Pearlina), non-idol Splatbands, even Craig Cuttlefish and Octavio! Maybe you'll see all this content if you stop exclusively browsing only the pearlina tag. Also accept that Deep Cut is boring.

ooh, another one.

Okay, I don't have all the time to type up an entire essay (tbh I lowkey admire the effort of writing four paragraphs just to bitch on me for having an opinion), so I'm gonna summarise my result.

I don't follow the pearlina tags. The only Splatoon tags I follow are Splatoon and the promo kids tag. Used to follow more but I have my reasons for unfollowing the other ones. (They were mostly agent ships, for clarity.)

I know other people care about the others. I'm just saying that when stuff like this rolls around it's never seen because everyone talking about pearlina gets top spots on this site and no one gives attention to anything else, so everything else is hard to see. This is mostly a recent development with grandfest, but even so Pearlina overshadows a LOT. For me, the Callie suit was actually a rare case of the community not focusing on them.

i know the Squid Sisters were popular in their first games. That's the point. Y'all are sitting out here talking about the old idols and ignoring the ones we're supposed to be paying attention to.

So what if the deep cut members don't have much lore to their names? I'm in the promo kid fandom! They have literally only their names and people don't have a problem coming up with headcanons and engaging stories for them. Just be creative. That's what fandom is for.

Believe it or not, I know Pearl and Marina featured in side order and octo expansion. I know they have a healthy dynamic. Surprise surprise, I've played the games too. I have both DLCs and have completed both. I know. That's not my point.

i also know that there are poeople out there caring about other characters. Like I said, I'm in the promo kid fandom. It's just that whenever pearl and marina appear on screen, any trace of that is immediately overshadowed and made ten times harder to find. And I rarely have the time to go hunting through tags.

I'm not trying to act like I'm better. I'm not guilty of pearlina posting, but I'm not much better either. I'm just stating how I feel and how i see things. If you've got a problem with that, great, but don't insult me for my feelings. It's your choice how you react to things. If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it.

[magpiesmemes]

|| Magpie's Tumblr RP guide ||

So it's been a while since I made one of these but with the shut down of omegle, more people are joining the site to rp, I figured I'd explain some of the basics.

Now none of these are necessary, you can just do as you do but these are some of the 'norms' here on tumblr currently. They may change and evolve over time, they've done so countless times in my time on tumblr but here's this for now for those who might find it useful!! Please feel free to offer feedback on this, I struggle with giving instructions so I've tried to make it as clear as possible but my brain isn't the best with this kind of thing. I will correct anything that needs correcting and add things as time goes on, so please do check back if you request an explanation/addition to something as I will try to add it asap.

Last updated: 29/11/23

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BASICS

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Basic Etiquette

Don't reblog roleplays that aren't yours, often this will mess up peoples thread trackers and it's a nightmare.

Rather than reblog asks to continue them as roleplays, make a new post and link the ask in that post. This avoids blog clutter for both parties.

ALWAYS read peoples rules and about pages. No exceptions.

No one is obliged to write their character purely as they are in canon. Canon divergence, au, or just additional headcanons for canon characters is very common. Do not make issue with someone just because their writing for a character doesn't fit with how you see them. It's their character, just don't write with them if you don't like how they write them. Simple as that.

Don't godmod. This means don't take control of a persons character unless otherwise instructed by the other writer, do not assume attacks immediately hit/injure/kill their character without prior planning for such a thing. You can write the attack, just don't assume it lands. This also applies to your character being aware of things - just because YOU know something, doesn't mean your character does.

Mun does not equal muse. Many people play villains because they're fun, don't assume that these people share the viewpoints of such characters just because they're writing them. The RPC would be painfully boring without some villain muses to stir the pot!!

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xkit rewritten

The absolute saviour of tumblr rp when you're on pc, unfortunately I don't believe it's available on the phone app but it's super useful for pc users. For chrome you can find it in the chrome extensions, I'm sure it's available similarly for other browsers. The functions on xkit that specifically benefit rp are: clean feed (for blacklisting any content you don't want to see), mutual checker, tag tracking+ and trim reblogs. Any others are entirely up to your discretion whether you want to use them or not. To use 'trim reblogs' the post must be in your drafts or posted, then you can use the little scissor tool at the bottom of the post to snip off older replies and avoid posts becoming excessively long.

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Settings

So if you're like me and want a chronological timeline for those you follow? Here's how to do that. Go into account settings. Not the blog settings to edit how that looks, you want the settings that has your account info, dashboard preferences, ect. Click 'Dashboard', which should be on the right hand side menu on your screen if you're using pc. Optional: Enable 'Show timestamps' so you can see how old posts are. I find this useful as it ensures I'm not responding to something that is 5 years old lmfao. Scroll down and turn off 'Best stuff first'. This should make your 'Following' tab chronological, ensuring you see whenever people you follow are posting.

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Blog Design

Try to make sure you have a header and an icon for your blog, you can set those using the 'blog settings' tab. Even if there's no picture of your character themselves, try to use an image that captures their vibe - this advice is for both the icon and the header tbh. While not having one isn't bad, it will make people less likely to follow back or perhaps even block you! Often iconless/headerless blogs are spam bots and everyone loathes those.

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Meanings of words commonly used by RP accounts:

Mutuals - Your mutuals or 'moots' are those following you that you follow back. Private - This means that the blog only interacts with Mutuals. Selective/semi-selective - Won't roleplay with everyone, they'll rp with people based on their own preference. Thread - A single rp storyline. Verses - Different timelines of characters. Eg. Kidverse, fantasyverse, ect. Mun/Mundane - You! The writer of the blog! Muse/Muses - Character/s you're writing. Faceclaim - The 'actor' of your muse, whether canon or otherwise. Who do you imagine playing them when writing or whose icons would you use for them.

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Tagging

When writing with someone it's a good idea to put their username in the tags at the very least, this allows them to find your threads easier. ie: '#magpiesmemes' would be used by others if they were to write with this blog.

Making tags for individual threads is also useful, meaning you can find specific rps far quicker. They don't have to be fancy but some people do like to make fancy ones. A nice simple one would be 'Thread: Threadname'.

Also having tags for specific verses is a good idea, indicating to your rp partner what timeline they're writing it. Something like '#kidverse' will do the job but you also can make those fancy.

Having a tag for rp memes you've reposted is a good idea also, meaning it's easier to find if someone wants to send you something. '#memes' does the job just fine.

Lastly, if you're a multimuse then having character tags is a good idea, indicating to people what character they're writing with. Something like '#charactername' is fine but again, any tag can be fancied up to your likings.

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Pinned Post

Having a pinned post at the top of your blog has become fairly standard practice in the rp scene these days. Usually this has your important links on it (rules/muse pages) and some explanation of what kind of blog yours is. For example: 'This is a Private, selective blog for charactername from fandom/an oc. Written by mun. [Ruleslink] - [Muselink]' This would work as a simple rudimentary introduction for people checking out your blog. You can pin a post by selecting the three dots in the top right on it after it is posted, ensuring it's the first thing people see when looking at your blog. This is mine, for example but it needn't be so indepth. I just have zero chill. If you're writing on a sideblog then it's best to also have a pinned post on your main account with a link leading to your roleplay account. That way people will know that you're a roleplayer looking to write if you follow them - and also they may follow the link to check out your stuff!

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Making Rules/Muse pages

These are important to indicate to people what you will or won't write, your personal writing preferences, ect. Many people won't rp with people who don't have these as it means they can't be sure of boundaries. People often use a post to do this, linking it in their pinned post to ensure people can find it. [Tutorial on how to link posts here]. That's the simplest way. You can also make a google doc or even make a carrd instead, linking them for people to refer to for this information. Alternatively you can use your pinned post and simply list it there - though there is risk of it cluttering your page if you have many muses. To avoid that, you can use a 'read more' such as the one this post was under. Make a new paragraph and various options come up, you want the one that looks like two straight lines with a squiggly line between them. [This icon].

Things to have on your rule page:

- Things you won't roleplay/triggers. - What is your stance on shipping (do you autoship with people who rp your muses partner or do you prefer chemistry first, ect.) - Writing length preference. Do you prefer short simple threads, paragraphs or more novella style? - Do you use icons? Do you prefer your partner would use/not use icons? Same questions with text formatting. - Tagging requests. Are there things you want to avoid on your dash using xkit's blacklist?

Things to have on your muse/about page:

- Basic description of who your character is, it's best to write it as if you're explaining them to someone who hasn't seen what they're from - even if they're a popular canon character. - If they're an oc with a universe of their own, a basic explanation of that universe would be useful but isn't really necessary if you can't/don't want to. - A picture reference of some kind is also useful, if possible. - A description of the verses you write them in. For example: 'Kidverse - This verse is set when my character is aged whatever and this is a short description of what they're like in that particular verse.'

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Advertising Your Blog

One of the many ways people advertise their blogs is by posting self promos. These are usually edited images with a little blog tagline, links to important pages and a short description of your blog. Here's an example of my own. Including tags of the fandoms you write in/write with is a good way to try and draw attention your way. Alternatively, if you're limited in your image making/editing skills you can make a simple post, perhaps with an icon or gif to draw attention. Explain your blog, what you write, who you're looking to write with, ect. Make sure to include tags so people can see it!

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More To Do?

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Okay, so you've got the basics down, now what? Well, there's a lot you can do to make your blog more functional and/or appealing.

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Thread Tracking

So you've got a roleplay but you're scared you'll forget to reply? I recommend RPThreadTracker. There's a how-to use it on the site faq and it's a lifesaver in keeping track of your threads tbh.

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Icons

Though not necessary, you can find icons to use usually by searching the 'charactername icons' or 'faceclaim icons' right here on tumblr, be sure to follow peoples instructions for using them though. Some people will want a like/reblog for their use.

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Formatting

Many people, like myself, use some form of text formatting when writing. Some of the usual ones are small text, like the one I'm writing in now. That's done either by using 'ctrl+shift+-', 'ctrl+-' or you can use this:

while highlighting text. This tool also allows you to colour your text, italicise, ect. Play around with it in your own time to see what works for you. Some other useful keyboard shortcuts:

'Ctrl+b' - Bolds highlighted selection 'Ctrl+i' - Italicises highlighted selection 'Ctrl+z' - Undo, good for if you've accidentally erased text you didn't mean to erase.

[abyssal-ali]

Hi, my friend is asking why there are so many maribat fics, and especially with DamiMari.

Maybe you know about the history of these crossovers in Batman Fandom?

Hi!

(Fellow Maribat fans, feel free to add your own commentary or correct any of my mistakes.)

So @/ozmav created the Damian x Marinette ship in 2018, I think? It was just a fun little crossover that blew up and became really popular. I was not around either of those fandoms at the time, so I'm not sure about all the details.

Daminette was the first Maribat ship created, so it was around the longest, and thus accumulated the most works.

Eventually, the other Bat Boys got their own ship, and now the Maribat (or now, more technically, DCxMLB) fandom has so many more ships and crossovers -not necessarily between the Bat/MLB main characters.

Some rarepair ships (any DCxMLB ship not between one of the four main Bat Boys and Marinette) include Konette (Conner Kent/Superboy and Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug) and Timdrien (Tim Drake/Red Robin and Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir), to name a couple.

The Maribat fandom also crosses over with multiple fandoms, like DPxDCxMLB or MCUxDCxMLB.

Some pure MLB and DC stans definitely dislike Maribatters, especially during the beginning of the fandom, when the tags for both fandoms were cluttered with DCxMLB content. Now that it's grown so much and has its own tags, I think the hate has calmed down somewhat. (Although, I prefer to keep out of fandom drama, so I may simply have missed the hateful discourse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

Overall, the Maribat fandom has really grown from a crack ship to its own large, well-populated community. There are tags on Ao3 and many discord servers, which runs events such as "Jasonette July" and "Maribat? Get In! [a server] Civil War".

On a personal note:

As to my thoughts on the ships themselves, my favorites are Daminette (Damian Wayne/Robin and Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug) and Jasonette (Jason Todd/Red Hood and Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug). It's always fascinating to rotate a character or ship in your head like a rotisserie chicken, considering their Canon and Fanon traits and then exploring them in whatever medium you choose (my medium of choice is writing fanfiction).

For Daminette, the ship you specifically asked about, I am drawn to it because I find the differences between the couple adorable. I personally have a fondness for the Grumpy x Sunshine trope, a Tsundere male lead, and relationship/character growth. (Of course, sometimes it's nice just to read a cute 500 word drabble with no plot, no specific dynamics, and no development, where the couple is just cute and happy.)

I think that is one of the beauties of Maribat. With so many various ships and characters to choose from, there's something for everyone, and we can all bond over belonging to the same fandom(s). Some of us have joined from the MLB side, some from the DC side, some just got dragged in by a friend and have no knowledge of either fandom, and that's okay! With so much to explore in both fandoms, there is constantly new content* being made with love (and tears. And laughter, both evil and joyful. And hornin-).

I've made some of my best friends through this fandom, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

I hope this helps, and I apologize if my ramblings detracted from my answers!💜

*Yes, I am aware of the popular Tropes such as "Akuma Class Trip to Gotham" and "Long-Lost Wayne".

[pixiewritesstuff]

https://www.tumblr.com/blue-kohina/637366409321660416/how-old-is-the-kawaii-bean-shino?source=share

Shino was canonically 14 in 2020, which means now she's almost 18, and I'm 99% sure Smudge is a child. and from what I've been told, you ship them. so you're shipping a child with someone who is almost an adult.

Okay, woah hold on.

Firstly: Hi, it's nice to meet you.

Secondly:

Whenever I draw Smudge and Shino together. I will always draw them as best friends. I did originally ship them but that was BEFORE I made the discovery of Shino being much older as all the artwork I've seen of her has depicted her as around Smudge's age.

I no longer ship Shino with smudge because not only would it be strange as hell to ship a 6 year old with a character who does age with time (Smudge remains six for the sake of continuity until she grows older and leaves)

I originally struggled to find Blue Kohina's account and believe they deactivated it but after I found it and discovered that Shino is now canonically a teenager, I dropped it like it was a burning plate.

To be entirely honest, I think I prefer Shino and Smudge as best friends because I've come to realise Smudge doesn't need a love interest to develop herself and her story.

And if it is relevant to your case, let's just say I still shipped Smudge and Shino:

Smudge also grows to be 18. Her story continues with her realising the abuse she's experienced and flees, her story then continues. I haven't announced this yet because I'm not active on my tumblr and prefer my tiktok which you can easily find.

Shino is oftened depicted as a child in both fan art and fan fiction and if this had been brought to me sooner, I would've known. Shino and Smudge are purely friends. Please don't accuse me of being a "proshipper" based on evidence that has been outdated. You can talk to me over discord if you'd like because I will never ever condone proshipping and find it repulsive.

Do my stories have dark content? Yes.

Will my stories ever depict pedophilia, incest, rape or anything of the sort? No.

Shino and Smudge grow up together story-wise and will be nothing more than friends.

Thank you for your ask.

[edwinspaynes]

i noticed u have been reblogging more jem positive posts. have ur thoughts on him changed?

My feelings for Jem are pretty consistent.

I love him in TID. Historical!Jessa is great in TID, even if I prefer Wessa. I'm glad Herongraystairs will be the afterlife endgame because it's the only way any of the three of them will be happy, and all of them deserve to be happy.

I like these things, I think TID is perfect, and I wanna talk about them.

If you've noticed, all Jem/Jessa content I reblog is either TID-era content or Herongraystairs (rather than just Jem or Jessa.)

This is because I dislike his constant appearances in modern content. He has no place in the modern canon, Cassie loves him too much and overuses him for fanservice, he overshadows other characters, the way he's written makes modern!Tessa an insufferably boring OOC character with no personality of her own, and his fans are absolutely insane sometimes in the way they worship him.

My biggest problem - that Will is treated as a speedbump on the way to the True Jessa Endgame that's being pushed down our throats (and deserves better than to be that speedbump) - isn't Jem's fault, it's purely an issue with the writing in the modern canon.

I actually had a recent epiphany that my Jem/Jessa divide is A Deeper Love, and that's a core reason the story enrages me. Up until that point in the publication order, Jem's cool and I like him. After ADL, I find Jem insufferable (publication order) and Tessa insufferable (chronologically - she's awesome in TLH if underused/overlooked).

I AM NOT A JEM ANTI. I AM NOT A JESSA ANTI. I SHIP HERONGRAYSTAIRS.

I just prefer Will and Tessa's dynamic for a smattering of reasons overall and find that it hits harder. I'm just so sick of both Jem and Tessa in the modern canon, though I consider Tessa to be collateral damage from the way Cassie writes Jem as though he's the only person in the world.

[pixelkip]

Who is Annello?

Didn't think I'd ever have to be asked this but here goes bc I'm So Normal about them.

Ok short version: annello is a fusion of Annie and Garcello. They were created purely as a character for the song Unleashed, atsuover's mashup of Release and Animal, and they aren't canon to either the mod or the Canon lore of these 2. They almost made it into Hazy River with an updated design, remastered instrumental and new voicebank but it was scrapped. Their only presence in the mod is the icon unfortunately sjgkdjgkd

If you haven't seen Unleashed, here:

And the remastered version/scrapped hazy river version gameplay

And you should because it's a BOP

But for a longer version, the story doesn't end there.

Yeah, annello doesn't have any real lore. Except they sort of do??

Rageminer has offered some idea of how they think annello would come to exist, just keep in mind this isn't planned for any kind of official content or anything

This was stated I think once on a livestream but multiple times on Discord, that clover imagines they'd come from Annie finding Garcello while he's still all ghosty after he dies, and fusing with his ghost. The fusion would mostly be relying on Annie, and would be difficult and painful to maintain.

My interpretations usually take this in a different direction with the same basis but that's not important

Ok some extra stuff I couldn't fit in with the rest and I think is notable:

- Clover said once on discord that annello has 6 fingers, but even sprites in the video of the unused unleashed build with a new design don't have this. It was present in art by atsuover that circulated around discord while the new design was being developed, however. I think it's neat so I still draw them that way

- Yes it means they have 6 toes too

- their original voicebank was created by overlaying Garcello's normal chromatic scale (i.e. not the nerves one or the ghost ones) and Annie's updated scale. This was the first time Annie's new scale was technically used, but it wouldn't be heard on its own until Golden Arch March

- the voice from the remastered Unleashed was made by combining Clover and Anne's scales. This was done to make them sound more distinct from the 2 while still sounding like they could be a fusion of them. I personally prefer the old one but that's just me

- Annellos,, I guess associated color is yellow-orange, as seen in the Spotify art for unleashed and in art from discord or their new design

- with the new design, they got their own magic item, a canister of vapor that when opened creates clouds that produce acid rain. It can be seen in the remastered Unleashed video. This seems to be based on the Spotify art for Unleashed that shows them in the rain.

- and yes, their name is ANNELLO. A LOT of people used to mess this up, Anncello being the most common misspelling. It's been confirmed both in clovers comment on the remastered Unleashed and several times on discord that ANNELLO is the correct spelling.

- although, Garnnie was the name a lot of people, particularly the Japanese speaking part of the fandom, assumed for them and ended up being used for "failed" fusions of annello by atsuover

- and for those who are somehow still unsure, their canonical pronouns are they/them. Source: the time on discord someone tried to argue this with people and anne atsuover herself came to settle things with a screenshot of her own damn tweet about them.

I can make a separate post with a rundown of about MY interpretation of them if anyone wants but that's for another day

[rabbit-of-mugenri]

I wonder, what do you ship in Len'en?

Oh hey, you're the one who made the Fanfic Discord server right? This is Starrot Vanity! And I finally made a Tumblr for Len'en stuff 'cause the hyperfixation is back I caved in and wanted a larger space for my headcanons/AUs that Discord couldn't provide. You've asked me this question before, but for the audience at home (also so I can elaborate on some of them):

Ooookay, so, this is a bit of a complicated question to answer, since the ships I'm interested in on a relationship analysis level and the ships that I find think would make a good couple are two separate circles. Not to mention there's a third, equally separate circle consisting of ships that aren't actually ships in the romantic sense, more in a platonic/"they have a really good dynamic" sense.

So I'll split this into threes parts: Ships That are Good, Ships That are Interesting (but please for the love of God don't emulate the behaviours of these ships they're unhealthy as fuck), and Platonic Ships.

(Also content warning in the second section for abusive relationships and Suzumi being Suzumi)

Ships That are Good

AkaYabu

This is just a pure, simple "idiots in love" ship, with a dash of "no homo" since they're just friends. So what if they tuck a homie in bed, give their homie a little kiss sometimes, that's just what bros do!

...As you can see, the main conflict in this ship is that both of them think the other sees them as just a friend, alongside their own denial about being in love. Doubly so in Hooaka's case: Why should Yabusame be interested in them when they have Tsubakura? Hooaka can tell the two have a deep, complex relationship with each other, and they don't want to intrude. Which leads to...

YabuTsuba

Oh boy, these two. Yabusame has a deep, unwavering loyalty to Tsubakura that neither know exactly why. Tsubakura's especially confused by this, but at the same time they need that. After all the pain and suffering and death they've gone through, they need someone who's just there. never asking why like everyone else.

(As for how these two ships are resolved, usually one is more down played than the other. So for example, if the focus of something is on YabuTsuba, then Hooaka simply sees Yabusame as a friend. Occasionally though, I'm reminded that Yabusame has two hands.)

TsuruTen

This one's interesting, since it's essentially YabuTsuba in reverse. Or, to put it another way, Tsurubami is (ironically) a more human Yabusame. Whereas Yabusame's reasons for staying by Tsubakura is shrouded in enigma, Tsurubami's reasons for staying by Tenkai is much more simple: Tenkai represented a alliance with Azumaterasu, a barrier workshop rumoured to have been founded by a god.

But Tsurubami began to feel that Tenkai represented much more than that; Tenkai was a way to starve off the loneliness that came part and parcel with ruling Mugenri. Tenkai added colour to their world, and soon Tsurubami realized that they didn't want to use them as a pawn, they wanted a friend.

Ships That are Interesting (but please for the love of God don't emulate the behaviours of these ships they're unhealthy as fuck)

HibaTsugu

So like, there's no canon basis as to how badly Hibaru treated Tsugumi, but in my headcanon it's pretty badly my dude.

Both of them are old as balls, but while Hibaru has seen shit, Tsugumi was oddly spared from most of the horrors living for hundreds of years has. Perhaps out of luck, perhaps out of a preference for plants over people. They heard of Tsurubami and their dictatorship, though, and they weren't fond of that.

Neither was Hibaru. And so, the two of them paired together in an effort to take down the Senri Shrine. Along the way, the two became friends, possibly even more.

And then the final confrontation happened, wherein the pair learned the truth behind Mugenri, its purpose. Hibaru's response? Snap Tsugumi's wings and leave them behind.

Adding on to this, Hibaru's got like a thousand years of moral decay to work with, versus Tsugumi's somewhat sheltered life. How fine were things, truly?

Suzumi + Shitodo (SuzuAo, SuzuAka, SuzuKuro)

Sure, Tsubakura-sama was their main target, but Suzumi can work on multiple projects at once. And, well, hurting those close to them also counts towards Tsubakura-sama's suffering, doesn't it? Since Yabusame's too...strange in a way that Suzumi doesn't like, that leaves the Shitodo family.

Kuroji's their main target, being the one closest to Tsubakura-sama. And oh, how close they are to the real thing! How beautiful it is to see their normally aloof behaviour break down, crying and begging for their life! Alas, their only a pale imitation to the great Tsubakura, so they're soon disposed of.

Hooaka, now there's an interesting one! They play dumb, but Suzumi knows better. It's just so fun to push their buttons, see what causes them to drop the act and show a more serious side. It's like a gift only they get to see!

And Aoji, oh, Aoji. They're pretty, they're in tune with nature, they're small and quiet and just a little slow on the uptake. What isn't there to love? Just cute enough to kill.

SuzuTsuba

I...don't actually know what to add here that hasn't been said before. Suzumi is their own warning.

Platonic Ships

Hooaka and Kuroji

Man, these two. These two. They care for each other, they want to protect the other, everything the do for the other is out of love. It's just their definition of showing appreciation for the other is so covered in layers of irony and an inability to be honest that the other misunderstands and assumes that the other just hates them.

A tragedy, isn't it?

The rest of the Shitodo's

Honestly the dynamics of all the Shitodo's is just so good. They're all varying degrees of dysfunctional, but at the end of the day they all care about each other. It's just...a struggle to get any of them to admit it.

The Fujiwara's

Speaking of dysfunctional families that still love each other at the end of the day, how about Mugenri's own home-grown Fujiwara's? Possibly even more of a mess compared to the Shitodo's, since murder's on the table for dealing with family scuffles.

[knayv]

𝖙𝖊𝖒𝖕 𝖕𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖉. independent arlecchino of genshin impact. headcanon-dependent until canon proves otherwise. minors dni. #𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐘𝐕.

BLOGROLL: @baishouqijia ✦ @capitaneus ✦ @kohlapsar

I. no homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, harassment etc. i do not reblog callouts unless the individual is genuinely harmful (i.e. behaviour related to those listed), rather than being called out for personal grievances. you are welcome to block the tag 'callout /' for this purpose.

II. i do not interact with minors. if you are a minor, i ask that you do not interact with me or this blog. i cannot guarantee that this blog will remain sfw, therefore this is a blanket rule.

III. arlecchino is a villain, and i don't intend to shy away/soften her up, so dark topics may be present. that said, i do not write incest, nsfw involving minors or sexual violence - i'm okay with these topics being included in a character's backstory but will not be writing these explicitly.

i do write nsfw headcanons/nsfw themes in my threads. this may include sexual content and explicit gore / violence, with my rp partner's consent.

as an aside, i appreciate that a lot of people enjoy the villain/victim dynamic but please don't reach out to write with me if you're only focused on tragedy/victim plot for your muse. it's very one-sided for development, and i get very little enjoyment from writing it. i want to explore arlecchino as her own person, and not as a plot device.

IV. please specify muse before interacting with me if you are a multi-muse. i'm very original character friendly, so long as there's a viable way for arle to interact with your muse.

V. please check out headcanon tags before interacting! arlecchino has little canon information so will be reliant on these. some are supported by canon lore, some of these will just be based on pure vibes alone.

my arlecchino uses she / he / they pronouns and i use them interchangeably.

VI. this blog will be low activity. i work full time in a demanding job, so please don't interact with me if you need fast replies to maintain a muse. i am quite responsive ooc, but when it comes to writing, you will just have to take my word for it that i am worth the wait ʚ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ɞ

VII. shipping is very cool and i am open to it! i ship with both genshin and non-genshin muses, and occasionally ocs. i prefer headcanoning more than actual writing due to my writing speed, but i am still interested! i prefer shipping with chemistry rather than what's considered canon, and i'm generally singleship but this is not a hard rule. i’m also poly friendly.

ship bias: tsaritsa, columbina, sandrone, signora, beidou, rosaria, childe, capitano

all others are welcome to explore, no hard feelings if it doesn't work out c:

VIII. i'd appreciate it if you didn't use heavy metaphors / poetry in our threads. absolutely no hate or anything, i just find it very difficult to understand what the characters are actually doing in this writing style. i also ask that you don't use real life face claims in our threads; i write characters who do not have irl images so it feels very space jam.

IX. i write muses without knowing most of their lore from in-game text because i am lazy. i play genshin daily, but most of it the lore supplied by youtube/wiki because i genuinely cba going through all of the texts in game to get pantalone crumbs. if i write something incorrect to canon, like hideously wrong, feel free to let me know. chances are i just didn't read the small print.

X. i go by dima or vodka! i'm 27 and use they/them. i'm a hobbyist artist and i love fantasy, liches in particular. i will draw our muses whether u like it or not. my dms are open, feel free to ask for my discord, or genshin uid if you play on EU!

[baishouqijia]

#𝖇𝖆𝖎𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖖𝖎𝖏𝖎𝖆 independent PANTALONE  of the FATUI HARBINGERS ( genshin impact ). headcanon-based portrayal until canon confirms otherwise. themes of violence, adult content and spoilers. minors do not interact. by dima. ⓒ

AES. CARRD. CREDITS. HEADCANONS. MUSIC.

BLOGROLL: @capitaneus ✦ @knayv ✦ @kohlapsar

I. no homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, harassment etc. i do not reblog callouts unless the individual is genuinely harmful (i.e. behaviour related to those listed), rather than being called out for personal grievances. you are welcome to block the tag 'callout /' for this purpose.

II. i do not interact with minors. if you are a minor, i ask that you do not interact with me or this blog. i cannot guarantee that this blog will remain sfw, therefore this is a blanket rule.

III. pantalone is a villain, and i don't intend to shy away/soften him up, so dark topics may be present. i do not write incest, nsfw involving minors or sexual violence - i'm okay with these topics being included in a character's backstory but will not be writing these explicitly.

i do write nsfw headcanons/nsfw themes in my threads. this may include sexual content and explicit gore / violence, with my rp partner's consent.

as an aside, i appreciate that a lot of people enjoy the villain/victim dynamic but please don't reach out to write with me if you're only focused on tragedy/victim plot for your muse. it's very one-sided for development, and i get very little enjoyment from writing it. i want to explore pantalone as his own person, and not as a plot device.

IV. please specify muse before interacting with me if you are a multi-muse. i'm also original character friendly, so long as there's a viable way for pantalone to interact with your muse.

V. please check out headcanon tags before interacting! pantalone has little canon information so will be reliant on these. some are supported by canon lore, some of these will just be based on pure vibes alone.

my pantalone uses he/they pronouns and i use them interchangeably.

VI. this blog will be low activity. i work full time in a demanding job, so please don't interact with me if you need fast replies to maintain a muse. i am quite responsive ooc, but when it comes to writing, you will just have to take my word for it that i am worth the wait ʚ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ɞ

VII. shipping is very cool and i am open to it! i ship with both genshin and non-genshin muses, and occasionally ocs. i prefer headcanoning more than actual writing due to my writing speed, but i am still interested! i prefer shipping with chemistry rather than what's considered canon, and i'm generally singleship but this is not a hard rule. i’m also poly friendly.

ship bias: dottore, capitano, childe, yelan, tsaritsa, pierro

all others are welcome to explore, no hard feelings if it doesn't work out c:

VIII. i'd appreciate it if you didn't use heavy metaphors / poetry in our threads. absolutely no hate or anything, i just find it very difficult to understand what the characters are actually doing in this writing style. i also ask that you don't use real life face claims in our threads; i write characters who do not have irl images so it feels very space jam.

IX. i write muses without knowing most of their lore from in-game text because i am lazy. i play genshin daily, but most of it the lore supplied by youtube/wiki because i genuinely cba going through all of the texts in game to get pantalone crumbs. if i write something incorrect to canon, like hideously wrong, feel free to let me know. chances are i just didn't read the small print.

X. i go by dima or vodka! i'm 28 and use they/them. i'm a hobbyist artist and i love fantasy, liches in particular. i will draw our muses whether u like it or not. my dms are open, feel free to ask for my discord, or genshin uid if you play on EU!

[koseigu]

independent & private multimuse sideblog, showcasing original and canon characters from jujutsu kaisen & more

featured muses: shoko ieiri, ryomen sukuna

nsft content, occasional gore, & dark themes ahead est. 2024, written by tsari (29, they / them) all follows / likes / asks will come from taliaromanova pinned graphic by @rubiisources icon and header art by jkoonana_ & crumplstiltskin ♡︎

altar of my unceasing devotion: cadavors, dev1lute, harerazor, gokunoban, gravesung, tewwor exclusives: eleutheriya (loid forger), getsusekaii (jin itadori), keiteiken (yuji itadori) life-partner in crime: macabrehunter ︎(affiliated & exlcu. astarion ancunin, gale dekarios, enver gortash, fox mulder) binding vow: brazenlystrong (affiliated & exclu. satoru gojo) ♡

muses || memes

rules below the cut

based purely on my personal preference, i am much more likely to write with you if you are over the age of 25 ( like me ). this isn’t a hard and fast rule, and will be enforced at my discretion.

i do not roleplay with minors under any circumstances. not just nsfw, nothing at all. i will not follow you back if your age is not listed on your blog in some way. this rule is non-negotiable.

nsft themes will generally include sexual content, graphic violence etc. all adult content will be tagged “nsft. ( let your body match what your eyes can do ) " or tagged additionally “tw. x” based on the specific trigger. i keep a general list (large amounts of blood, excessive gore, etcetera). smut will happen, though i’m selective and prefer to write it with people i've already had a bit of a convo with first. posts will be cut if i deem the content graphic enough (if genitals are mentioned, etc).

the only “text flair” i use are italics, bold, strikeouts, and the occasional color. i prefer writing in small text. for accessibility reasons i am happy to change WHATEVER is needed for you.

all OOC posts (including munday asks and the like) are tagged “ooc." 

if you wish, feel free to block the "my art. / my photography." tags to avoid seeing those posts. if reblogs are on, it's totally ok to share the post!

if you are uninterested in writing with me you owe me NO explanation. i do just request that you hardblock or at least just send me a message if i accidentally follow and you don't vibe with me. i love following duplicates to see different ideas but i know that's not everyone's cuppa!

for tag blocks: my gore tag is "tw. gore" and my blood tag is "tw. blood" — i am in mortuary school and i write both a pathologist and a curse that likes to eat people so expect that you might come into contact with these themes and block the tags ( or me ) accordingly. i want to make sure everyone can enjoy their dash and find comfort there as much as possible. ♡︎

discord is preferable for communication purposes once we start chatting, and you can find me at tsarinabeena—i'm generally a lot faster with replies there too. i love to plot or just hang out and chat!

thank you for reading :)

[essayofthoughts]

Why do you think some people within the CR fandom ship Percy x Ripley? Not that I’m trying to bash anyone for their preferences, but it seems like there are a few folks who really like the pairing, despite knowing that Ripley is/was a horrible person and that she tortured/(probably) m*lested a young boy? I’m sorry if this is a rude question, but I’m just trying to understand.

... I am choosing to believe you are not a troll but are asking in genuine good faith because I’m reasonably sure I came across as about as defensive when I was enquiring as to why people shipped something I didn’t understand way back when. And so... there's a lot to unpack here but I'm gonna break this down into a few points, okay? Namely:

Writing a ship =/= Wanting a Happy Ever After for the ship

Tagging a ship =/= "shipping" a relationship

Narrative foils & others' motivations

Storywriting tools & narrative catharsis

I don't think she did sexually assault him.

This is probably gonna get long so this is ALL below a cut.

1: Writing a ship =/= Wanting a Happy Ever After for the ship

Nonny, I am someone who never seriously “shipped” anything in their life until Perc’ahlia walloped me over the head; almost every ship I’ve ever written has been purely because I think it would be interesting to explore. And - this is true in one part or another for plenty of people. We don’t write a ship because we think it would be wonderful or happy or good. We write it because we think it would be interesting.

And generally, people would rather the story they are reading or writing be interesting rather than boring.

This means that sometimes people will write dark subject matter. Unhealthy ships. AUs you don’t agree with. In every case this is because they find something in it that is engaging. You seem to grok that, given that you’re asking, though your phrasing suggests a degree of defensiveness that means you’ve already made up your mind. But the simplest part is: what is cathartic or interesting for you is not necessarily cathartic or interesting for others - it’s a variant of the Kink Tomato - YKINMKATO - Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay: in essence, live and let live.

Some people find a ship interesting or cathartic because of their own experiences. Some find it interesting or cathartic because of their lack of those experiences. Some people find it interesting to explore because it’s a perspective they want to understand. These are all equally valid and absolutely none of them means that someone necessarily “ships” something in any sense more than writing it for that catharsis.

2: Tagging a Ship =/= "Shipping" a Relationship

At the end of the day, tags are there to let people know what a story's content may be in order that people can decide for themselves if it is of interest to them. This includes relationships - both platonic and romantic - as these relationships are often the backbone of a fanfic. However, this does not mean that the author necessarily thinks that a relationship they write is likely, should happen, or even that they necessarily want it to happen (more on that in Part 3). This also means that one should tag for relationships that may be purely physical, including assaults, or purely emotional, such as pining or pre-ship content. It is considered appropriate to tag these, again, so people can decide if this is content they want to see. It does not necessarily mean the person tagging them approves of the relationship - merely that they have written it as a part of their story for one reason or another.

Tags do not equal approval; they are merely a warning of content - in much the same way an author can write a murder and not particularly actually want certain characters to die in canon or a murder to happen right next door to them. It is simply good manners to mark character death in fandom spaces so fans and non-fans alike can decide if they want it and brace themselves for it if they're unsure.

3: Narrative Foils & Others' Motivations

Now, I can't speak to others' motivations but I can make a guess as to why people enjoy bouncing Percy and Ripley off each other - namely, she canonically traumatised him and fandom loves angst.

Like, I want to be clear here, you said “it seems like there are a few folks who really like the pairing, despite knowing that Ripley is/was a horrible person and that she tortured/(probably) m*lested a young boy?” and I want you to understand that the fact that she is a horrible person and hurt him is part of why people are interested in bouncing the two off each other in fic. They want to see what will happen and often they want the catharsis of getting Percy away from her and on a path to healing. The fact she is a terrible, awful human being is kind of the point.

People find it engaging to see a character hurt and how they respond to that hurt, that is why Hurt/Comfort is a fandom genre to the extent that it is, similarly Angst. Fandom has made a massive shift towards Fluff of late (which I... dislike, because I think a lot of fluff is empty of any plot, tension or real engagement with interesting parts of the canon or dynamics and thus find it boring) but Angst, Hurt/Comfort and adjacent fields such as Whump are long-standing parts of fandom. It makes sense people would want to explore their fave getting hurt - especially if it's something we know happened in canon but don't know any of the specifics of, as here.

Secondly... well, if you've only seen the animated series you may not know this, but from the Campaign, Ripley is Percy's foil. She is his dark mirror, she is someone he understands and hates that he understands. She is what he could be if he had no morals to speak of, she is as brilliant as him, as ruthless if not more, and because she canonically tortured him, they have a prior interaction to cause these similarities and differences to be drawn into stark relief. She replicated guns - what he considers to be the worst mistake he ever made - using only second and third hand reports.

She is his foil, intellectually and narratively - and unsurprisingly people find that engaging! People want to explore that. It doesn’t matter that she’s a terrible person and that a relationship between her and Percy would be #Bad - what matters is that she’s a terrible fucking person and that’s interesting to explore. What matters is that she’s a terrible person who reliably makes Percy freak out and act irrationally. What matters is she breaks down certain of Percy’s walls and if you’re aiming for a fic where he starts to deal with some of his issues, she’s a great trigger point to use.

What matters is she brings what you want to the story. I cannot speak for the reasons others write it, but a good part of it is likely to be the way that they are foils to each other and that makes these narratives satisfying.

4: Storywriting Tools & Narrative Catharsis

My reasons for writing content tagged "Percy/Ripley" are simple: I find it engaging. I think it throws some interesting potholes in the path and I enjoy exploring those potholes, I find genuine catharsis in Percy being hurt in these ways and then working to heal. Ripley is merely a tool in exploring that because I find her to be the most applicable of the canon characters and her past personal interactions with Percy give it a much more interesting underlying mess to dig into. Much as I love Perc’ahlia, I don’t think I could write the specific things I want to write, tackle the specific issues I want to tackle, if I was using Percy’s relationship with Vex as the sole lynchpin - not least because I’d have to drastically mischaracterise Vex to do that and if I did that on purpose I’d consider that frankly appalling writing.

To make this clear, I do not think Percy and Ripley together in any fashion is healthy. I do not think it is a relationship which should or would last. The times that I have written it - in That balance may return, finds and shall find me unafraid, the Ripley's Assistant series and now Odi for the Delia AU - are all me using it as a narrative tool in which it hurts Percy and he spends the rest of the story healing from it and at some point in each of these, Ripley fucking dies.

In balance she assaults him in Chapter 1, it ends with him killing her, and the whole rest of the fic is the complicated healing process. It is literally tagged Rape Recovery.

finds me unafraid is a continuation of someone else's fic and doesn’t actually contain the assault itself but again - Percy is not in a good place, Vex kills Ripley, and he spends the remainder of the fic healing. It is tagged Feeblemind Spell and Rape Recovery.

Ripley's Assistant is Ripley purposefully wrapping Percy around her thumb, him having a mental break and murdering her, and then him recoiling from the truth of that for a while before finally getting counselling in Arc 3. It is tagged Emotional Manipulation and Manipulative Relationship in the first Arc and The healing process is not a straight line on later arcs.

Odi and the Delia AU is itself an AU of Ripley's Assistant and will be tagged more completely as the story goes. Currently its tags include Emotional Manipulation and Emotional/Psychological Abuse.

I wish to make it clear, once again, what I said in the first section. Just because you tag something with a ship does not mean you approve of it. It does not mean you think that it is a good thing. It means it is a part of your story and like many parts of a story, it is something you find engaging and it is a tool to aid in the end goal you wish to achieve. It means it is a part of your story and you are doing the responsible thing and letting people know so they can decide for themselves if they want to engage in it. It means, for one reason or another, it is there.

And, in my case - the reason it’s there is narrative catharsis and providing, to the best of my ability, an accurate view of this kind of trauma and the resultant healing process. I’ve read quite a few fics, both in this fandom and others, which do not seem to quite grasp that the healing process from this kinds of trauma is often messy and complicated. Even with Percy’s known trauma in canon and how Taliesin plays it, a lot of the fandom... simplifies it or takes shortcuts with it in order to get to “the good stuff” - usually their endgame ship. I have seen fics where Percy shows Vex that he has a gun he keeps for a psychological sense of safety and then calmly explains his trauma to her in an infodump.

Suffice to say, this is not my personal experience with people struggling to heal from a deep personal violation and trauma. That kind of straightforward infodumping isn’t even accurate to canon. Indeed, as my tags on some of these fics state The healing process is not a straight line. It is messy. It is fucked up. It is complicated - and I wanted to write fics that expressed this in ways that were accurate to my experience rather than ones which felt trite and hollow and like they didn’t actually care about the trauma but were rather using it purely as a prop or stage dressing. And, consequently, to get right into the nitty gritty, it was appropriate to write it in full detail. To provide that narrative context. I wanted to do those narratives justice and that means writing what parts of the trigger events I feel able to write.

I personally write Percy/Ripley events very specifically to explore the ultimate fallout thereof - it is always fucked up and the end goal is always to get Percy away from her.

And now, lastly:

5: I don’t think she did sexually assault him.

...Yeah some people may disagree with me on this but whatever. You asked.

The reasoning for this is twofold. Firstly, I don’t think it’s in Ripley’s character to assault someone she’s in the process of torturing for information - perhaps on her own time, maybe, but not when she’s on the job - and Secondly, I think that if she had assaulted Percy he’d be fucked up in a somewhat different way to canon and specifically I don’t think he would have gotten together with Vex in the way we see him doing on stream.

(Thirdly, I think a lot of fandom spaces do not think of the violation of physical torture as being on par with the violation of sexual assault, but I’ll get to that.)

Firstly: I don’t know if you’re basing your claim that she “(probably) molested” Percy on TLOVM, general fanon or something else, but I can say it’s something I disagree with. And if it is TLOVM - Mercer has said it’s a separate canon to the events of the Campaign and the Campaign is what I’m going off of.

What we see of Ripley in on-stream canon is someone impersonal and controlled - while she can be cruel that cruelty is focussed and she seems to use whatever tool is appropriate at the time.

I do not believe that she would consider rape to be an effective means of getting information out of Percy. While it would absolutely hurt and traumatise him, I don’t think it would make him any more likely to tell her anything - I think she is likely to have used much more conventional torture techniques to hurt Percy and get information out of him and I don’t think that raping him at that stage would have been for any purpose other than her own personal satisfaction and... while I think Ripley’s probably a person who’d get off on power, I also don’t think she’s someone who’s urges really control her. For gods’ sakes, she prevents herself from swearing even as Vox Machina are lining up to kill her. She is incredibly controlled, incredibly goal-oriented and I can’t really see her doing that while on the job. Perhaps in her own time if she got ahold of Percy away from the Briarwoods and you characterise her as more of a sadist than I personally do but... I don’t think it would be in character for Ripley to assault him and I think that fandom’s tendency to assume that she must have done so says a lot about the people who come to that conclusion (namely, that third point of mine - but we’ll get there).

Secondly, Percy is a deeply private person and we know from canon that he does not start addressing his grief for his family let alone his trauma surrounding the events of their loss (and thus his trauma from being captured and tortured and Cass helping him escape only to see her seemingly die, etc. etc.) until the very end of the Campaign. Consequently, if he had rape trauma to process he would not have done so until the end - and that would likely put a severe damper on any progress with regards to his relationship with Vex.

Percy has several traits I find especially endearing and one of those is pretty simple: he never wants to hurt his loved ones - he outright says so in the Briarwood Arc and his actions prove it further - and he continually endeavours to keep his loved ones from being hurt by his actions. This is especially true with Vex whom he gives multiple gifts, always listens to and, importantly, takes pains to communicate with clearly and to give her the reassurance, help and answers she needs - whether she’s asking those questions for her own sake or to find out something regarding him (consider Syngorn compared to her enquiring about the blood behind Percy’s ear. Both times Percy gave her careful, considered answers even admitting things he’d be highly unlikely to do so in any other context).

Percy never wants to see his loved ones hurt, least of all at his own hands, and starting a relationship with Vex, who flirts willingly and constantly, when he has unaddressed sexual trauma to deal with seems unlikely to me at best. Vex makes her general sense of sexuality pretty clear at various points in the Campaign and Percy pays attention to Vex. He makes his observations and he absolutely uses them to inform his decisions regarding her - and this flirtatiousness and apparent sexuality is something he would be very aware of and have to consider if he was interested, even vaguely, in starting a relationship with her.

If Percy had been assaulted by Ripley, if he was dealing with that on top of the trauma and violation of torture as well as the traumatic loss of his family and the resultant grief, then I think that either he would not actively pursue a relationship with Vex because he’d fear hurting her if things got physical and he recoiled or, if he did decide to pursue it then he would go out of his way to actually have that “Later talk” with Vex before she ambushes him naked at her bedroom door. And, if he still put off that discussion to that point, then I don’t see him doing as he did in canon which is bluescreening with hearteyes before running in gleefully - I see him actively trying to pause things, put the brakes on, and have that needed conversation.

The last thing he ever wants to do is hurt his loved ones, and seemingly rejecting Vex because he recoils from intimacy due to unaddressed trauma would absolutely do that.

Consequently he would want to make clear to Vex that his reaction is due to his own issues and is nothing to do with her. He knows she has rejection and abandonment issues thanks to Syngorn and Syldor. He knows how much it means to her that he, as posh as he is, always listens to her and gives what genuine affection and advice he can. I cannot see him in canon willingly undermining that if he could help it. Percy is often best at confronting his issues when those issues are approached by or relevant to Vex.

Thus - I do not think it is in Ripley’s character or MO to have assaulted Percy while interrogating him and I think that if she had then Percy’s resultant additional trauma would manifest in indicative ways.

And now we get onto that third point.

Because fandom, frankly, can be kind of shit about trauma. Not in regards to acknowledging that trauma exists and can have a severe impact on people - it’s pretty good about that - but specifically it seems to think that certain kinds of traumas are greater than others.

To quote a wonderful old post this ain’t the trauma Olympics.

There’s this recurring belief - never outright stated but repeatedly acted on - that if someone has some trauma related to physical violation then it has to be rape or some variety of sexual assault. Has to be. Which is, frankly, insulting to those who have other sources of trauma related to physical violation - such as torture or non-consensual touching - as well as kind of demeaning to people with any kind of trauma in the implicit suggestion that their recounting and what they choose to share is in some way incomplete.

Additionally, the way that fandom assumes that these great traumas have to be sexual, that it is the ultimate most traumatising thing also... really says a lot about the prevailing attitudes towards sex in fandom spaces.

To be clear, what it says ain’t good.

Yes, the way many people are socialised does absolutely prime people to consider sex a special thing which again absolutely primes people to find events regarding it more significant - but sex is not in some way magically more traumatising than anything else. Plenty of things - even seemingly innocuous things - can be traumatising given certain circumstances. This idea that if someone has a great violation-related trauma it has to be sex... is really dismissive of all of those other sources of trauma!

I understand that this kind of implicit belief is pretty culturally ingrained. I understand that most people have never really had much cause to consider this belief deeply - but I have seen it come up repeatedly in fic, where Percy thinks or implies or outright says to Vex that Ripley assaulted him, and it’s usually a fleeting thing. It’s there as set dressing or to set up sex therapy or just because an author decides to include it and I always have to wonder, when its treated so easily and casually, 1. to what extent the idea was actually thought through versus just assumed and 2. to what degree they actually consider such trauma that they can toss it in as a throwaway line and only sometimes delve into the consequences.

6: ANYWAY - Conclusion

And now, after that lengthy ramble, we finally return to some semblance of a conclusion.

In roundabout answer to your question, I think what you’ve asked and how you’ve asked it says a great deal about how you percieve shipping - as automatic approval of the relationship in question, rather than just a tag to mark it as something covered, as condoning it rather than just thinking it’s interesting or cathartic to explore - and is not reflective of the reason why things get tagged with a ship at all. It’s not about approval. It’s about applying the relevant warnings so people can choose for themselves.

As for why they write it which is a different question - catharsis, mostly. They find it interesting and engaging and get satisfaction out of the narrative questions that they pose using those interactions between Percy and Ripley.

And as for whether she molested him - I do not believe she did. She absolutely fucking tortured him, that’s 100% canon, but I don’t think sexual assault was a part of that. I think, if it was, Percy would have handled a number of things very differently.

Lastly... while I was digging out links up above and double checking things I noted here, I decided to get some stats too.

AO3 Works Tagged (as of 13/Sept/2022):

Percy & Ripley: 23

Percy/Ripley: 30

Percy/Vex: 1886

The number of people engaged in writing it is not that high nor that prolific - and I know for a fact that many of them ship other things too, often in a spirit far closer to what you seem to think “shipping” is.

Or for a TL;DR: People write it because they find it engaging and cathartic but that doesn’t mean they necessarily ship it or think it would be healthy or even that, if they ship it, they necessarily want it to be sweetly romantic or have a happy ending. It just means they find it interesting.

[missholoska]

(answering as a screencap to avoid this showing up in any tags/searches, I don't wanna Start Anything)

I did like A/ltertale up until a couple years ago, but I have several issues with it that prevent me from enjoying it anymore. I've heard some not great things about its creator since I unfollowed, but I don't want any part in discourse and I'm only gonna give my thoughts on the AU's actual content:

Undyne being shipped with a man is... pretty bad. in fairness not everyone has to like a ship just because it's canon, and it's entirely possible to prefer other ships while treating the canon ship respectfully and without any homophobia or harmful intentions. but completely writing out Alphyne, mostly ignoring Alphys' existence, and shipping Undyne, the one character who makes multiple references to her attraction to women and never once says anything of the sort about men, with Asgore doesn't seem like there were respectful intentions. what could've been less of an issue is that if A/ltertale had to write out Alphyne and have an Undy/rus equivalent, it's already a swap AU and Alphys canonically both has a crush on Asgore and is bi/pan. there'd at least be some logic to it if Alphys were swapped with Undyne and shipped with Asgore instead, rather than going against Undyne's extremely heavily implied, all but stated outright sexuality.

on the topic of Alphys, I don't like how she's barely ever acknowledged. as with my first point, you don't have to like every character much less create content about them, but for an AU that otherwise focuses on the main cast, her lack of presence really sticks out. and it's a shame because Alphys absolutely could have a place in A/ltertale! even without changing anything, AT Toriel and Alphys could be close friends who help each other through their anxieties, and considering this is a Soriel AU? towards the pacifist ending UT Alphys talks about shipping Toriel and Asgore, but they're siblings here as are the skelebros in their roles, so instead you get AT Alphys as the in-universe number one Soriel shipper!! it's such a missed opportunity :<

speaking of Soriel, I'm not very fond of AT Soriel anymore for a few reasons:

I find their age gap kinda uncomfortable. please note I am not calling it pe/dophilia, because it isn't; AT Toriel is canonically "about 21", not a minor. given that I ship UT Soriel I'm obviously fine with mortal/immortal ships, but my condition for those is that the mortal character must be a decent number of years out of their teens (mid-20s at least), and for my preference Toriel is just slightly too young compared to AT Sans' physical age being "about 35". it's not illegal and I don't expect anyone else to have the same specific preference, I just don't like it.

it's so common for m/f pairs to have the man be taller and older than the woman, and this not applying to UT Soriel is a small part of their charm for a lot of people. AT Soriel undoes this, and I know that's the entire point as the AU started from an ask about "Toriel and Sans in swapped bodies", but it's just Less Good.

they both feel too UT Sans-like to me with not enough UT Toriel in either. maybe if AT Sans was more openly parental, lonely and out of touch like UT Toriel, or if AT Toriel retained more of UT Toriel's personality, one of those might balance out better. as it is, they both seem too chill and meme-y aside from how AT Toriel gets flustered.

also the sexual jokes and art are really really not my thing but that's purely me being sex-repulsed @_@

this isn't every thought I have but anything else would be nitpicks and I'm not trying to be needlessly negative oTL

anyway as I said above, I just quietly unfollowed the creator rather than actively complained or anything, and regardless of what the creator's said or done with the AU I don't wish ill will on her or anyone who still likes A/ltertale. I only ever really talk about my opinions like this when I'm specifically asked about them, so having said all this I'm just keep focusing on the stuff I enjoy instead 👍

[captnjacksparrow]

If you are saying that Anime added more scenes for NH in the context of Naruto series, still.... apart from that extra flashback scene in Pain Arc, I didn't see any special scene for HinaTrash. I am not going to acknowledge that shitty The Last movie, so there is that.

I was talking about the Naruto anime. I don't watch or read Boruto so I'm not up to date on their filler nonsense. The Naruto anime (more so Shippuden) had a ton of Hinata fillers that simultaneously pushed NH where there wasn't any because Hinata was barely in the manga. That's if I'm remembering correctly of course.

Like, they had Naruto and Team 8 (or just Hinata) interacting a lot, specifically for little shippy moments for Naruto and Hinata. The earliest I recall is when they had her nude and dancing in a lake when she was 12 and had Naruto spying on her. Why??? And from there Hinata was just shown far more in the anime than she should've because she was a minor character in canon.

If this is about Naruto, I agree with the lack of fillers for SS. But Sakura got plenty of extra scenes with Naruto. And because of that NaruSaku fandom got serious and still exists. Even the Anime production staffs got disappointed about NH because they expected Naruto to end up with Sakura. They love Sakura and self-inserted her in many places along with Naruto to make her more likeable.

That's genuinely surprising. I never would've guessed that they had positive fillers for Sakura (especially to add to the NS relationship). SP, imo, seemed like they were always trying to add stuff to make Sakura even more unlikable.

I have to laugh though at "the anime production staff got disappointed about NH". That's hilarious. I'm not a fan of them because SP has shown their obvious favoritism for Hinata by giving her so much filler content, filler romantic moments with Naruto and trying to animate her the best while half-assing other characters and big moments (like that infamous part of the Pein fight). Also they sexualize her character 98% of the time, not a fan of that either.

While I completely agree with the fact that both of them had spent a good screen time enough to become a couple atleast bazillion times better than that Pinata trash.

Agreed. Also I'd like to add without getting serious, NaruSaku with all the alleged red herring romantic moments/comparisons to Naruto's parents are cute. I find them adorable. But if I had a say I'd much rather most, if not all, of the characters just stayed single at the end of Naruto (maybe ShikaTema could still happen, idk). I'm a huge fan of SNS but sadly I don't think it would've ever been allowed to be canon despite how incredible their relationship/bond is and how obvious their feelings are.

I get your annoyance with the NaruSaku fillers though. Just because I prefer it over trash ass NaruHina doesn't mean I think the NS fillers are acceptable. Imo fillers should just stay purely comedic as to not cause chaos like the Naruto fillers do. And yeah, seems like the NH and NS romantic fillers aim to make Naruto into a pervert. No thanks.

(ALSO. I see that girl in Naruto's weird white towel imagination moment. That girl with the big hair that's in Konohamaru's gang. WHy on Earth would they include that child in the perverted moment? I ask that but I'm not surprised. I just mentioned them doing worse with young Hinata)

And if someone claims that Anime team hates Sakura, show them these scenes. Studio Pierrot probably don’t like SS, I guess, But they love NaruSaku. That’s why even in Boruto Anime, they go out of their way to add a scene between Sakura and Naruto in the last episode. Whereas in Manga, they are yet to share a scene together!!!

I am still shocked by that, lol. That's weird that they do that given their Hinata obsession.

She is just another version, a mild and soft hentai, version of Pinky who just says something but absolutely never do anything about it!!!!!

She is spouting the same shit throughout the series. Atleast she should’ve become a Jounin who can help his husband by carrying out missions...!!!!

All she ended up doing with her Ninja Way was serving Tea!!! So, basically She didn’t do Jackshit about anything!!!!!

LMAO!! What a great summary. But see, what you said is accurate but Hinata fans (specifically the die hard/extreme ones) swear up and down that she's strong/surpassed Neji- HAH!/that she's so compassionate and kind/yadda yadda. It's because of all her fillers! Especially that god awful movie The Last.

It feels disgusting that NH shippers was not even guilty about Hinata being excluded from Boruto’s life entirely.

Another surprise. I figured they'd demand that their "Byakugan princess" get more unnecessary screentime. They must be satisfied since NH is canon. Woop-dee-doo~

Like, they had Naruto and Team 8 (or just Hinata) interacting a lot, specifically for little shippy moments for Naruto and Hinata. The earliest I recall is when they had her nude and dancing in a lake when she was 12 and had Naruto spying on her.

Aah, That shitty Bikachu insect episode!!!! I think Naruto didn't knew it was Hinata though... But yes, they were sexualizing a 12 year old kid which is kind of creepy...

But then, I never watched any filler episodes apart from what they have shown in Part 1.... Because I was so stupid that I didn't know that there is this concept called 'Fillers' exists... I almost watched 20 episodes after episode 135, still Sasuke was not there... So I got frustrated and googled it.... (I made it a point that I never google about this anime to stop myself from spoiling the plot)... I found that everything after 135 was fillers and Sasuke will not appear until Part 2.

So yeah... If you are talking about Hinata being prominent in fillers.... Yes, she may be. But I don't know as I've never watched any of her episodes. Studio Pierrot made use of her popularity to make filler stuffs because she treated Naruto nicely in Part 1...

I have to laugh though at "the anime production staff got disappointed about NH". That's hilarious. I'm not a fan of them because SP has shown their obvious favoritism for Hinata by giving her so much filler content, filler romantic moments with Naruto

Again, I’ve never seen pure filler episodes that features Pinata. So, I couldn’t notice these things.

Whereas in Canon Episodes, Movies, Promos Posters.... Sakura was the prominent one. In my previous post, I’ve shown you how much Naruto was acting like a simp for Pinky in the canon episodes whereas they didn’t bother to add similar extra scenes for Pinata except for that Pain Arc confession episode (I mean inside canon episodes... not fillers)!!! 

All these scenes happen in the openings or endings.... ESPECIALLY AFTER THE THE PAIN ARC... If you notice properly, Naruto was seen walking along with SakuTrash,

he was doing a combination jutsu

and was seen running towards her and stops himself abruptly before getting very close to her face.... 

This above thing screams romance.... Whereas in Canon this was not how Naruto felt about Pinky really.... 

I know there is this Ending where Hinata and Naruto goes for Ramen Date... But that’s way too late to introduce her alongside Naruto. And that’s the only ending she shares along Naruto in a romantic sense. That’s why I said SP loves NS. Yes, SP might love Hinata separately... But in a shipping sense, they really went all out in the canon episodes for NS than they ever did for NH. And that’s why NH fandom hates Pinky with all passion.

And even Kishimoto himself said in an interview that the animators who were working in SP were thoroughly disappointed about NH, even Kishimoto’s wife included.

Also I'd like to add without getting serious, NaruSaku with all the alleged red herring romantic moments/comparisons to Naruto's parents are cute. I find them adorable. But if I had a say I'd much rather most, if not all, of the characters just stayed single at the end of Naruto (maybe ShikaTema could still happen, idk). I'm a huge fan of SNS but sadly I don't think it would've ever been allowed to be canon despite how incredible their relationship/bond is and how obvious their feelings are.

Well, I was also saying the same for a very long time.... Why should they have to pair everyone??? Like Chapter 699/ Episode 479 is in and of itself felt like a true ending. May be 700th chapter could have been about how Naruto was crowned as Hokage after 6 or 7 years... And then .... The End!!!!

Wouldn't this be nice?

Because there were so many people in the original series who were never married and lived their life without any fuss!! Like take Iruka, Tsunade, Kakashi, Raikage, Killer Bee, Might Guy, Madara and so many....

I am not expecting Naruto and Sasuke to hold their hands and ride off to sunset!!!! No one would have at that time....

It's just that I feel it would have been better if they had left every characters stay single and let the characters do what they promised to do at the end rather than spewing babies and making horrible family drama!!!!

Well, all these marriages were proven to be pointless any way. Naruto literally adopted some random kid called Kawaki... Sasuke adopted Boruto. Naruto don't even talk to that Himawari kid. I don't know why that girl exists in this series. It doesn't make any sense at all.

If they are going to do this adoption thingy, then what is the need for a marriage?

Naruto is completely ignoring Himawari, Partially ignoring Boruto but having meaningful heartwarming Pillow Talk with Kawaki!!! It’s really funny that NH  shippers ignore all of these and still demanding filler shits where Naruto and Pinatrash playing Home!!!! What an awful fandom!!!

[glassesandswords]

Ness, I've been in mobuhan hell (heaven?) recently, and I. Just. Can't. Get. Them. Out. Of. My. Brain

(they're so cute, the dedication, the loyalty, the flavor?)

I would love to know what my favorite author thinks of them, so please be kind to me? 💜

Helloo there anon! You're right in time, I was just going through some adorable Mobuhan artworks.

Mobuhan is real cute, I agree. I think I gave them a solid 9/10 in my ship rating earlier. It's got that right amount of wholesomeness, teamwork, loyalty and angst to make it work, and is definitely one of the most unproblematic ship I've ever seen. Good taste!

As for what I personally think about it, well, I don't really ship them, but I can definitely see the appeal. There are two reasons for that, one being that while Moblit is quite handsome in his own way and his loyalty to Hange is unquestionably firm, he's quite... underwritten. Like, I feel bad saying this, but Moblit really has no personality of his own other than being protective of Hange. He's a Plain Jane, a character I can easily self-insert into. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think I'm more invested into ships that have a balanced dynamic, where both characters are relevant on their own. It's really not Moblit's fault, I just wish Isayama had fleshed him out a little more, y'know?

Which brings me to the second reason, the superior-subordinate relationship trope is just not my cup of tea. It's the same reason why I don't ship Eruri or Rivetra, I think both of them are super cute and they've got some high-quality crumbs, but I can't get myself invested in them in a romantic sense because they were introduced to me with a power imbalance, where one person unquestioningly obeys the other. Again, this is not a bad thing, it's just that my own preference in ships diverge. I like my ships to keep each other on their toes and bring out different facets in each other. It's just more fun to read about than a rather peaceful relationship where one person has most of the control and the other just follows along.

This is why I enjoy Mobuhan more in AUs, because there, Moblit is given more time and effort to develop as an actual multi-layered character, rather than canon Moblit's 'babysitter-only' personality. However, that said, I still highly appreciate Moblit's unconditional, pure, and selfless love and respect towards Hange, and his sacrifice impacted me a lot more after I read the Smartpass AUs and watched the PS4 game videos where he's given more background for me to get to like him than what the anime did.

I especially love Mobuhan fanarts, they are really sweet and wholesome and they enhance Moblit's character so much. It's hard to find good Mobuhan-centric content or creators who genuinely care about them, for it is usually portrayed as an underrated side-ship, but when you do find them, it's very cute.

The fandom is a gift sometimes.

[rpbetter]

I'm so tired of roleplaying with people who don't put half the commitment I do into our threads and muses. I'm so tired of feeling like I'm a weirdo or like I don't belong for that. Any other hobby and people wouldn't care if I took it seriously. Why is roleplaying different? How can I keep going like this if I'm getting rudeness from all sides? I can't even go outside my already tiny bubble and find more partners, because I always see people putting roleplayers like me down and it's exhausting.

"Why is roleplaying different?"

Well, Anon, I know that was a rhetorical question, but I have some thoughts on that. To the surprise of no one!

I strongly believe that this is an issue with how fandom has come to dominate roleplaying. As I've said before, it really wasn't always like that. Of course, you always had canon characters and almost all RPers were invested in a fandom or two. The difference was that online RP was once viewed much more like tabletop RPGs are.

When the RPC became a near-total offshoot of Fandom, a lot of shit changed and very rapidly...and within Fandom, a lot of shit was changing very rapidly as well at that time.

RP has always been something looked down on (though, at least no one ever accused written RP online of being literally demonic like they did DnD, or made correlations to murder sprees like they did LARPing, so there's that) as strange, not the good, understandable sort of dorky.

Part of that is almost certainly because of the difference in the way society views writing vs the way it views hobbies like gaming - writing is seen as an intellectual pursuit and a job, gaming, even at its most negative points of view in wider society, has been seen traditionally as a downtime activity only.

But. RP was not looked down upon from within Fandom or in roleplay communities themselves like it is now.

When the whole experience of fandoms themselves became extremely mainstream and open, it welcomed in a ton of shit ideas and behaviors that were not previously prevalent. It changed RP, too, along many of those same lines.

When your hobby is considered objectionably weird by people within the fandoms you love and RP in and that makes you a sort of lowest-tier fan, the viewpoint of RP to RPers becomes something lesser than a valid hobby. When RPers are the same people who engage with Fandom monetarily, anything not monetized is passively consumable content, including RP. And RPers are trying to both deflect shame and struggling with wider society's mixed messages, that now hit them everywhere online as well. Shit like, "you don't have to monetize your hobby, it's okay to just make really good cross stitches of memes for yourself" and "if you're not paying me, you have no control over me."

We seriously do not view RP as a proper hobby anymore, that's why. There are many factors to that, those are just few, but that's the ultimate answer. It's not seen that way because it's not valued in the same way.

I think much of the problem with muns losing their entire shit over anyone else approaching the hobby differently, dare I say...more seriously, is related to a lot of complex psychology about self-esteem, control, and anxiety. So many people here struggle with serious self-worth and confidence issues, and I think to many of them, whether they realize it or not, when they see serious RPers, they feel like that's an inherent judgment and a danger to their own enjoyment. Because RP, as writing, is a skilled hobby - the more you practice it, the more skilled you become with it. Meaning that someone who approaches the writing seriously is going to be at a higher skill level.

Enter the way we're training to think about writing again - when they see someone who is very practiced, skilled, and confident with their writing, the learned idea is that they're somehow superior in a nasty, personal way.

I most certainly do not think that makes it alright, it isn't, and I'm not very tolerant of it.

It's absolutely alright to engage with RP in any way you see fit. If that's extremely casual, it's a minor hobby for you, that's great! I'm so happy you're enjoying yourself, and I mean that in no facetious way. But not when that is the only form of it respected and accepted. It's just as alright to have RP as your primary, serious hobby!

The only way we can all enjoy a hobby with such great variance within it is by respecting each other's variables, not by vilifying them. It's recognizing that, no matter how much you enjoy the mun and/or muse, they're not engaging with the hobby in the way you are, it's not a good fit to write together. (Please, begging y'all to be friends with those who are different, not enemies, shit's sake. You've not got to write together to be friends!) Instead of labeling them and being hateful. Different =/= a threat.

And, to go off a bit lol y'all demonizing serious RPers really don't get that there are some intense tones of ableism and more going on in that narrative of yours, huh?

Not that anyone requires a reason to be serious about any hobby, but when people pick a hobby like RP as their primary one...you should probably have the maturity to consider why that is. Could it be that they focus on a hobby they can do from their homes and that requires low physical involvement, and has a degree of separation from direct socializing, for a reason?

Serious RPers tend to be limited in their ability to pursue other hobbies. Mental and physical health, region, finances, and ability to spend time outside of the home are all very common limits for those who "take RP too seriously/are addicted to RP."

Maybe take five seconds away from your own issues to consider that the person you're shitting on for something so minor as a difference of importance of a hobby might be the full-time caretaker of a special needs child, having to remain home and on a very small income. They might be chronically ill or suffer from agoraphobia. They might live in an area with no hobbies of interest, affordability, or at all...or they might live somewhere that is incredibly dangerous for them.

I honestly do not know where these people have been that they've been aggressed at by serious RPers, but that's usually the excuse. (I'm not saying it has never happened or does not happen, before anyone goes there.) The idea that serious RPers are extreme elitists who are demanding that other muns do what they do, how they do it. That they expect other muns to be online and RPing all the time, that they be "available for entertainment at all times" at the cost of real-life matters. Having the expectation that threads not be dropped constantly or that a writing partner not leave for months with no contact is neither of those things.

In over two decades of RPing across almost every platform type that has existed, I have literally never seen that be either a singular RPer-type problem or one that serious RPers are even more likely to deal in. I've seen the opposite, actually. Which is not a condemnation or a statement that all casual RPers do this, just what my experience has been. And one that actually stands to reason based on the way they view and engage with RP - quick replies, quick entertainment, and very low commitment to threads, muses, or other muns. Of course, it's annoying to them when a more serious RPer is unwilling to do rapid-fire style quick, short threads from an ask with them, but is writing the lengthy replies they already owed instead.

That's probably a factor as well, in here among a plethora of misunderstanding/unawareness of differences - for many serious RPers, it's not easier and more fun to write short, quick threads. So, what a casual RPer is seeing is that they're willing to put all this extraordinary effort into a massive reply to someone else while their easy, fun, quickly done thread is waiting in line.

Misunderstandings and unawareness breed hostility, period. And there is a hell of a lot of those things in the RPC.

What serious RPers are expressing are either boundaries/expectations or frustration. Not a demand that you be around all the time, but an expectation that you leave them alone if you're not also a serious RPer who will be committed to threads and muses. Not hostility and elitism, the frustration that it's already difficult to find muns who will work out before you add in the majority rule of casual RPers.

It's incredibly disheartening, frustrating, and honestly, a bit anxiety-inducing to constantly be the weird one, always have few choices, and to be at risk of being Problematic purely because you take the hobby seriously. You can't vent without someone jumping on your ass to remind you (even if you said numerous times that "real life comes first" and "people can do what they want") that omg, people have lives, people can do what makes them happy, it's just RP.

It's so upsetting when you think you might have found a good writing partner, then, you see a PSA they've reblogged about how it's a "hobby, not a jobby," and "no one owes anyone anything, ever." Excuse me, as that last one is a direct quote, let me redo it so it is verbatim: "no one owes anyone here anything - EVER !!!"

I said I wasn't very tolerant :)

But seriously, exactly what you've expressed is why I'm not...it's another form of controlling others instead of trying your best to control your own experience, and it's often extremely hateful. I'm not tolerant of anything like that, it's no longer supporting preferences at that point. When your preference is the only one that will be tolerated in the community, it's not a preference anymore.

It's something that makes others feel isolated, afraid of harassment, and depressed. It is a hobby and it isn't supposed to make you feel like that!

And, no, absolutely the fuck not lol the "answer" to this isn't that you're taking it too seriously and need to take a break. I'm so tired of seeing that shit tacked onto RPH responses and vents and PSAs. You're not saying that RP is making you feel this way, "just take a break and come back when you agree with everyone else" isn't a solution.

Of course, if you do feel like your time here has become so upsetting? Yeah, obviously, you should try to find some other things to supplement your downtime that make you feel happier again. Engage in some other forms of writing just meant for yourself, or that can be published as fics. Spend some more time on a game you enjoy for a while, or get invested in a new one. Learn to shape bonsai or make no-knead rolls. Whatever would make you happy as a hobby when you're not here.

Other than that, however, well...we're not going to be implying on this blog that you're too serious and need to take a hiatus until you have no emotional investment in your hobby. That's insane. I'd not say it about hiking, martial arts, dog obedience competitions, hobby farming, or painting either.

I wish I could think of some solutions as to where you could look that wasn't like this, but it's definitely the majority of the RPC. It doesn't help that, due to this, serious RPers have a tendency to quietly stick together and not venture out into the RPC. They're just not incredibly easy to find.

I will say that they tend to be:

novella - if you're not here for serious RP and sticking around for a while, you're not going to invest the time and energy into particularly lengthy writing

older RPers - I would say that twenty-five is probably the youngest, with early thirties to late forties being the majority

in fandoms with a large adult base of fans - even if it's a franchise friendly to, or even meant for, younger fans, if it has a particularly active adult fanbase, it's a better chance of finding serious RPers in it

as above, old fandoms - fandoms that have been around for a long time tend to have more serious RPers in them

fandomless OCs - tend to have a higher chance of being written by serious RPers than canons or heavily fandom-involved OCs

RPers who do not do a ton of advertising for their muse(s), but when they do, they don't advertise them based on activism points or trends

slightly more likely to not have an emphasis on highly aesthetic blogs, graphics, icons etc. - they use a modified basic tumblr theme, low on graphics, their aesthetics are not on-trend, for example

anti-content policing/"write what you want" style muns

muns with more extensive rules pages - they plan to be here for a while, they take writing, RP, and their muse(s) seriously, so, it's a bit more important to them to head off problems before they start

those with older characters/FCs - be that literally in age or the character being one that has existed for a long time

"stay in your lane" style muns - if they're opining on fandom or the RPC, they must really be angry about something

those with numerous and detailed headcanons - for example, their response to a HC meme ask like, "what's your muse's favorite ice cream flavor?" is going to be treated seriously, not simply answered with "mint chocolate chip because my bby is gross"

As usual, not a complete or perfect list. I don't fit some of the things on there! It could give you some things to look for when trying to find other serious RPers, though. It's based on observances from someone who was never a casual RPer, even as a minor (me, obviously), and maybe it could at least keep you from continuously running into hostility about your approach to RP.

I've honestly considered making a list of some sort expressly for RPers who are on the more serious end of the spectrum, but...in a RPC back when things were dominated by serious RPers, I did that sort of thing with a RPH I had, and it still got labeled as being a list for and by Elitists. I don't know that anyone would want to put themselves out there for potential harassment on tumblr, you know? It was a joke then, just having a group of RPers label you as an Elitist. Here, you get told to kill yourself, and none of us need more of that shit, right?

Try to hang in there, Anon, I know it's upsetting, and I'm so sorry that something fun has gotten to be like this.

Try to understand that these people are coming from a place of irrational defensiveness, often in response to bullying themselves at some point or feeling bad about themselves. That doesn't make it right, but it does make it easier to not take to heart.

And keep at it! In my experience here, once you find a group of people you fit into, it really is...A Group. Especially among RPers who are ostracized, they stick together, they promote each other, and they're very happy for their mutuals to become your mutuals. Once you find them, it unlocks so many opportunities for the interactions and type of RP you've been missing!