#i guess this is kind of shippy but can be seen as not...

[everotten]

the girl next door and the creature that lives down the street

[it-happened-one-fic]

Ink and Magic - The Rose-Red Tyrant

Author Notes: So this is a sort of halfway non canon compliant what if with the overblots and their aftermath. I've been considering, for quite some time now, why the Prefect (reader) gets to see what amounts to the overblot victims memories and hear what seems to be their thoughts regarding said memories. So I guess you could say this is a kind of headcanon for what happens in those moments. This isn't exactly romantic. in fact, I would say it counts as more platonic, but it certainly can be taken as shippy. This will also be a series, though the Diasomnia section won't come out until that entire matter is resolved in game. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Spoilers for Book 1: The Rose-Red Tyrant!!

[Heartslabyul: You're Here!] [Savanaclaw] [Octavinelle] [Scarabia] [Pomefiore] [Ignihyde] [Diasomnia: To be released]

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ fic series/ Can be platonic or romantic/ fluff/ angst/ comfort/ Spoilers for Heartslabul overblot.

Word Count: 2311

The ground was a brutal red. Covered in crushed and bruised rose petals that mixed with dark ink and made everything slippery. 

All I could hear were the screams and shouts from those nearby, but rather than fleeing or continuing to shout directions and warnings until my voice was hoarse, I stood silently. Watching in quiet horror as Riddle stumbled, reeling from the magical attacks he’d just received from his fellow dorm-mates. 

His once soft gray eyes were a violent red and wide open as he stared at me with an expression that spoke of shock. Like his entire world had just come crashing down like a house of cards around him.

He was no longer a form of horror, as the monstrosity behind him collapsed in a flood of ink that spread across the already-soaked ground. 

Instead, Riddle now looked pitiful. Like a lost child. He was trembling all over, but he’d at long last stopped attacking, and I honestly wondered if he’d simply run out of steam.

But as I looked at him, an unexpected sorrow swelled within my heart and caught me off-guard as the young man looked down at his hands, still blackened with ink stains.

Bitter tears began to fill his red eyes, and his previously loud voice wavered as he began to speak, “I…. I was wrong?! But that’s…. Impossible…..” 

His hands came up to cover his eyes and hide the tears that now threatened to roll down his too-pale face.

 He was no longer a creature perfectly fit for nightmares, and my heart seized painfully at his next words. So soft and broken that they were barely audible, “Isn’t it…Mother?”

 With those words, he gave a shudder and stumbled forward, his hands limply falling away from his face, which was now streaked with ink from his stained hands.

This was a Riddle I’d never seen before. One that was completely different from the mature but tyrannical young man I’d met.

 This was a young boy who was lost, broken, and one that I simply couldn’t abandon in this moment.

I didn’t know if it was instinct or something else, but something drove me forwards. Spurring me into running towards the young man, who had begun to collapse forward. 

My feet slid against the inky but tattered rose petals that littered the ground. Evidence of the horror we’d all just witnessed. The other students' voices followed me as they let out alarmed cries. Ace’s voice was perhaps the most prominent as he shouted my name. 

The panic in his voice almost made me want to stop even as my tired legs continued to carry me forward.

In truth, I had only one thought in my mind: that the young man in front of me, Riddle, didn’t need to be alone. 

It was a truth that was whispered to me from within my own mind. Something I knew as a solid fact even though I had no proof.

I barely even knew Riddle. All I knew of him was tyranny.

But I held out my arms, catching the small young man that I now realized was quite frail despite the immense magical power he possessed.

 He clung desperately to my shirt with trembling hands, and a sob tore its way out of him. I could practically feel the cold ink staining my shirt as it seeped through the thin fabric, and we both sank to the ground. 

He was exhausted, with his head drooping towards me like he could no longer stay awake. And as my knees hit the soggy ground, a wave of fatigue washed over me that promised me peace if I would just let it carry me away. 

I faintly heard my name get called yet again, but it sounded far enough away to be in an entirely other world.

Perhaps it was a voice from my world, trying to call me back home.

But even with that thought in mind, I didn’t respond. Instead, I fell into a darkness that consumed me, and I slumped forward. Still holding the small, broken boy close to me. As if that could bring him the peace he seemed to so desperately need.

But I wasn’t meant to slumber peacefully here, and though the deep darkness of what I thought was deep sleep surrounded me, I was not truly resting.

I looked around in confusion, looking for someone else in this deep darkness. After all, it didn’t feel like I was alone. It felt like I was surrounded in a space that was filled with only myself and one other person.

 It was a strange sensation, one that left me feeling out of my depth as I glanced around in confusion. Finding that here, I was no longer exhausted or sore from the events that had just unfolded in Heartslabyul. 

Like a glitch on a television screen, the blackness flickered, and a hazy scene appeared. That reminded me of an old black-and-white movie recording. 

Even the voices were crackly.

“Happy 8th Birthday Riddle….” I frowned slightly and shook my head, wondering what I was seeing. 

I had to be dreaming, but…. Something about this didn’t feel like a dream. It felt more like I was trying to sift through my memories and was instead being faced with wholly unfamiliar images. 

A large woman stood, smiling down at an adorable red-haired boy whose face I immediately recognized with an alarmed jolt. 

Riddle. Without a doubt, that was the very same young man who’d just attacked me, my friends, and the other members of the Heartslabyul dorm in the midst of what I could only describe as a psychotic break.

I stared in a strange mixture of fascination and confusion at the scene before me as a voice that, unlike the others, was perfectly clear began to narrate the scene that lay before me. Riddle’s voice.

It sounded like he was right next to me, but when I turned, he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I appeared to be alone. 

Alone, but I was wholly surrounded by the scene of what seemed to be his, Riddle’s, childhood.

 “I’d always wanted to try one of those tarts with the bright red strawberries….”

His voice was as solemn as ever as it calmly explained the thoughts and feelings of the child Riddle, who seemed to star in all of these scenes. But the image before me did not stay peaceful, and I soon came to realize a darker truth about what was unfolding in front of me.

I listened and watched with mounting horror as memories from Riddle’s childhood, barren of playing and fun, played in front of me like a film. Every bit of it was narrated by a numb-sounding Riddle himself.

My eyes went wide as a young, brightly smiling Trey flashed in front of me. He was accompanied by another boy, whom I soon realized was that cat-like fellow I’d met in the Heartslabyul maze. Chenya, I believed his name was.

It was then, right after their appearance, that everything truly began to snowball out of control. 

Tiny Riddle finally got to experience the joys of childhood, only to be caught by his mother, who enforced even more rigorous rules on him. And it was painful to see the small child, who would someday become the young man I’d met not too long ago, weep as he was denied some of the most basic aspects of childhood.

I was beyond enraged on behalf of the small child in front of me. But what made it worse was Riddle’s voice, which was still narrating each scene even though tears were slowly beginning to choke off his voice, “But Mom… Why? Why does my heart hurt so much?”

I covered my mouth, as if that could somehow help me cope, as I listened to the young man whom I could hear crying, but I couldn’t see nor comfort.

The scene in front of me slowly faded to black, leaving me only with Riddle’s voice, begging for an explanation as I turned, searching for him in vain. But he was invisible, in this darkness, as he pleaded for an answer to his questions, “Tell me, Mom, please….. What rule do I need to follow to make this pain go away?”

I closed my eyes, shaking my head as if that could somehow help me figure out what to do, and then, like flipping a switch, it all stopped.

I opened my eyes wearily, only to find I’d been crying silently as I‘d held Riddle close to my chest. My cheeks were even still wet, judging from how cold the breeze was on my face.

Riddle himself was still asleep. His expression slowly relaxed from an upset that matched his tear-choked voice, which I’d just been listening to, to a more peaceful one that suited him far better. 

And it was a relief to see him relax after having seen what I’d just witnessed in whatever that dream was.

 One of his hands was still fisted in my shirt as he clung to me like a small child, causing me to smile slightly even as I shifted to better examine him. I froze mid-motion as I heard a sharp inhale from just next to me. It was then that I realized that both me and Riddle were not, in fact, being supported by one another.

Instead, it was the young man who knelt next to us who held us upright with his arms wrapped securely around the two of us in a sort of embrace.

I looked over and made eye contact with warm, honey-colored eyes that stared at me, relief sweeping through them as I managed to croak out the man’s name, “Trey.”

He let out an exhale, a relieved smile appearing on his face as his grip on my arm tightened ever so slightly, almost like he was trying to reassure himself that I really was present and that all was well.

“Thank goodness. You’re back,” His voice was soft, more of a breath than anything, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by ‘back’. 

But I didn’t get to ask, and he didn’t get to continue since I heard three familiar voices both yell the same name at the same time.

“Y/N!” 

I half turned, finding I was still exhausted and slumping against Trey a bit more as I spotted Ace and Deuce both staring at me in wide-eyed relief before they both took off as Cater, who was right behind them, was still turning to look at me. 

The two boys' feet dug into the still-inky ground as they darted towards where I knelt with Trey and Riddle. 

Deuce reached us first, hitting his knees and grasping my arms as he scanned me for injury, “Are you alright?”

His voice was trembling as he questioned me, looking up at me with wide, panicked eyes. His expression was mirrored by Ace, who was desperately asking me what had happened while Cater appeared behind them. Carefully scanning both me and Riddle.

“Hey, hey. You’re crowding them. They only just came too,” Trey’s grip on me shifted in an almost protective fashion as he spoke, and I realized I was still relying heavily on him for support.

Crowley walked up far more slowly than the others, his eyes on me and a frown on his face as he began to open his mouth to say something. 

But before he could speak, one of Riddle’s hands, which had been gripping my arm this entire time, tightened slightly, and he made a mumbling sound.

All eyes darted to the young man, who slowly opened his eyes, once more a soft grey not unlike that of a dove’s feathers, with a groan. 

He looked up, making eye contact with me before looking at Trey and then back at me. 

Cater was saying something to both of us, but I'd tuned it out almost completely as I scanned the boy for any injuries. 

Riddle continued to look up at me with hazy eyes as I carefully scanned his small form, frowning as I noted exactly how exhausted he still looked. 

After a brief moment, though, he pulled away from both me and Trey. Distancing himself as his eyes slowly cleared and the gravity of the entire situation sank in.

From there, the situation devolved fairly quickly, with numerous questions being asked and reconciliations being made. Trey swept in towards the end of things, with Cater by his side like two concerned parents. Demanding that me and Riddle both go to the infirmary for a checkup.

It wasn’t until we were alone in that cold room filled with cots that Riddle made eye contact with me once more, “My… memories. You saw them, didn’t you?”

I was silent for a moment as I recalled those strange scenes in flickering black-and-white before I at last nodded, “Yes, I don’t know what caused it but…. Yes, I believe I did…. I heard you too.”

He nodded, falling silent as we waited for the nurse to enter and give us a clean bill of health. After a few moments, he met my gaze again, “I think we…. Connected for a moment there. I don’t know how, but you saw my memories and heard my thoughts. And I… I felt you there.”

I watched him quietly, not sure of what to say as he fell silent. But I couldn’t blame him. I too wouldn’t know what to say or think if some had seen my memories.

After a moment, though, he looked over at me with a troubled expression before he spoke  quietly, “If I were you, I would tell the Headmaster about this.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say since something told me neither of us knew what this meant for me or him.

[jenny-from-the-bau]

Honestly from what I’ve seen on Twitter, I think the cheating thing was more of a joke than anything (not denying that some people genuinely feel that way though). I feel like most people have generally been saying that 17x06 was a good set up for Jemily to actually happen and that they want it to develop from there, not that it needs to be instant. Also the queerbaiting allegations seem to be more directed at the cm social media etc for interacting with shippy posts and responding in ways teasing the ship (e.g. saying that they ship Jemily too) but then referring it to as just a friendship later and the show seemingly having no intention of making the ship canon. Of course whether it’s actually queerbaiting is kind of debatable but I guess people feel like they’re being used for views.

Idk if we're seeing the same tweets, but every time I go on twitter, there's genuine anger and vitriol. People saying JJ needs to just cheat so Will is gone, wishing Will dead, saying that they don't want JJ and Emily being together unless it's canon (romantically), etc etc. It all seems very real and genuinely harmful. I've seen way more people saying they hated 17x06 because Jemily didn't become canon than anyone saying it was a good episode.

Also, like, I understand that it can be frustrating to see the CM accounts say they ship Jemily, but that doesn't translate to "because it's going to happen." A PR account isn't in the fandom. They're interacting with popular posts, and they may even ACTUALLY ship Jemily, but that really doesn't mean anything. It's never been said that Jemily is going to be made canon. No one has said that, I'm pretty sure.

Jemily IS a great friendship. The ultimate moment WAS wonderful and heartfelt and funny and fulfilling. They're best friends and they're there for each other through thick and thin. That doesn't mean they love each other romantically and they probably never will. JJ is happily married, and she also has an amazing, deeply fulfilling friendship with Emily.

Interacting with "shippy posts" isn't a promise or hint or anything like that. It's actually awesome that they're acknowledging queer fans and talking about queer ships! That's crazy to me, as someone who grew up with Rizzoli and Isles and Swan Queen. We're a valid audience!! That doesn't mean it's going to be canon, though. Romantic Jemily has never been promised.

Being acknowledged as fans of a ship in a positive way isn't the same as being used for views. Are the showrunners wrong for thinking that we love JJ and Emily as characters? Are they wrong for thinking that we want to see them be happy and close?

Want a queer ship on CM? Tara and Rebecca are right there! Why are they not good enough for people??

JJ and Emily are a wonderful, wonderful example of adult female friendship, and how important it is to care for your friends when you also have a romantic partner and a family.

[utilitycaster]

(Long ask warning)

Hello! I'm jumping on the appreciation train to say thank you so much for all of your meta and analysis! I just found your blog today, and you've already given me so much clarity and context for things I've been noticing in the CR fandom lately.

I quite literally spent my summer living under a rock (in the woods leading spelunking for scouts!) and so was completely out of the loop from early June through September. And while I am not yet caught up (I'm about to start ep. 65), I have been going through the tags and ao3, because I primarily engage with fandom through fic and I don't care about spoilers. And I can't help but notice that everything being written for c3 lately is just... monochromatic. The Hells have such interesting characters and premises. One would think they're ripe for creative and interesting fic. And yet even what little gen fic that I have seen since returning to civilization has largely been boiled down to reiterative mush with vaguely shippy overtones. I can totally see this being indicative of the cresting and waning of the Imodna and Callowmore shipping you've been discussing.

I've gotta ask though, is it really just shipping that is causing this problem? Or is there something else in the source material that you think could be affecting fic in particular?

This is the first time I've been in a fandom with ongoing source material in over a decade. I'm used to watching people beat dead horses in their own little corner, safe in the knowledge that I can block them and it isn't going to affect my experience in the slightest. I guess I'm just having a hard time believing/remembering that shipping can be this incidious.

So a couple of things: first, I was not heavily involved in fandom until Critical Role; I have a decent amount of background knowledge from being on Tumblr and because I do tend to look into/research this kind of thing because it's very interesting to me, but you will probably have better snapshot of what fandom looked like 10 years ago than I do. Second, fanfic has always been a tiny aspect of what I've engaged with and I do find the bulk of it to be dull and samey (which is why it is a tiny aspect), so again, you probably are a better judge of the quality of fanfic elsewhere.

With that said, as part of a much larger discussion of which I only have as mentioned pieces of the puzzle, I do think there's been a shift over the past decade or so of like...people expecting the source material to reflect fanfic-y desires, and resenting it when it does not; people not seeing the point in enjoying non-canon ships; and a broader theme of self-infantilization. This has to a small extent spilled over into published fiction, though thankfully there's plenty that isn't that. It's not just shipping (though that absolutely can be insidious to the point that people have been harassed and doxxed over it); I think it's a general taste for pablum that has been growing within fandom spaces.

I'll link a few posts I've made and a source that, while I cannot vouch for it per se I did read and found enlightening at the end but I think a really indicative example as of late was the fandom response to the show Good Omens (spoilers for Good Omens S2 in the next link if you are by any chance avoiding those). Obviously do not do anything obnoxious to the person who wrote this question, but there are a worrying number of people in fandom spaces who believe this unironically and uncritically: fiction exists to "save us from hurtful reality." And I do understand that the tumultuous politics and world events of the past decade are probably a factor; but I mean, have you looked at literature from the first half of the 20th century (or like. the second half, for that matter)? It is, in my opinion, only going to help put our modern world and issues in better context and honestly make you feel better in the long run if you read, say, The Great Gatsby or The Things They Carried instead of burying your head in lower case song lyrics ... (hurt/comfort, fix-it, happy ending, 6k) and like, to be clear, I have written a small portion of lower case song lyric-titled fics myself but most of them aren't terribly happy, and even so, god I'd be horrified if that was all people were reading.

We've seen it across fandom at large with the polls; I have not watched season 2 of Our Flag Means Death in part because I've realized with horror that this mentality has swept, plague-like, through that fandom; people are acting like having a canon queer ship on a small premium cable show in 2022 is world-changing and unprecedented while also kind of ignoring everything that isn't the central ship (including valid criticisms of how this takes a real-world plantation owner and turns him into a goofy fop, how there's precious few female characters and none in the main cast, and how the actually far more groundbreaking nb character is pushed aside in favor of the core M/M ship). Spoilers for Good Omens again (sorry in advance, Good Omens 2 was a realization point for me how deeply and widely this rot has set in in some places and I have a bunch of sources of people being like "guys stories require conflict and tension to be good" in response to the overwrought moaning that the story wasn't unambiguously happy) but this is another author responding to the "the desired endpoint of all fiction is obviously to have your ship living in a small house together in bliss and anything else is torment" mentality.

In addition to shipping another factor is, I think, people overidentifying with characters and as such being reluctant to actually put them through any sort of hardship, however minor. I recently reblogged a post about the origin of the concept "Mary Sue" and it led me to read a bit about its history, because it was in fact created by women. It was a woman in the Star Trek fandom who was sick of spending money to buy fanzines (pre-common home internet, let alone pre-Ao3) only to find the vast majority of the stories to be this "here is my self-insert who is perfect and beautiful and pure and every other character thinks she is the greatest even if that's entire OOC". It was a frustration with the abandonment of the characterizations in the original work. And that's true today - I have read a popular Imogen and Laudna fluff fic to see what the deal was and it stripped out so much of their premises and characterizations it was unrecognizeable as them but for the hair colors and occasional cringeworthy attempts to replicate Southern US dialect - but what was notable is that those people were at least being honest and writing OCs (though to be fair a lot of them were also young white teen girls and the only woman in TOS was black and that was probably also a factor). Now, you get people who cannot tolerate any analysis of characters that is less than flattering because instead of having an OC, they are identifying so strongly with, for example, Imogen or Ashton, that they cannot separate out the real character or understand this is not an attack on them (or, to be blunt, as someone who sees some of my own worse traits in both those characters, a necessary critique). It's not shipping, but it is that same "fiction should only ever be a soft blanket or a flattering mirror, never a dark mirror and certainly never a door" mentality.

I do place a little blame on fanfiction itself; I think having something that is roughly made to order and tells you exactly what it is up front means people start to think that is the only way, and that's why we have people claiming Chipotle is the height of cuisine while making gagging noises at the authentic Mexican restaurant except for fiction. I think fanfiction can be great; it's fun to write and I have read some great pieces. But a lot of it is mush and formulaic and as that Mary Sue history points out, always has been.

So anyway, to Bells Hells: I think past campaigns also had a lot of dull fanfiction; I think the Nein lent themselves more to poorly written angst than poorly written fluff but yeah a lot of that was really samey and bland in its own way. Fanfiction has always been formulaic to a degree but I think we're starting to see the generation of people who really have read more of that than like, books, and sure there are shitty books, but man there's a LOT of shitty fanfiction, and increasingly, I find that shitty published books are bad because they're too much like fanfiction. [If I get the chance today I have a post I want to write about the ignorance of fantasy tropes in the current fandom which I think is also driving some of this and which I alluded to in my post about shipping; like, I feel the almost automatic but oddly thought-free resistance to gods and fate and the 'right' way to respond to a tragic backstory comes from this ignorance; this also is a case in the D20 fandom when they've dipped into sci fi.] Shipping definitely is a factor, and I think again C3 has an influx of fans primarily here to ship in that "my ship must become canon and must 'win' for some arbitrary definition thereof" which is probably why so much of the fanfic sucks, but again, this is a larger self-infantilizing and entitled mentality that goes beyond mere ships.

Further reading (mostly my own posts but not exclusively)

The fandom echo chamber (also Good Omens spoilers in a broad sense), not by me

Some discussion on queerphobia being inserted only as a tool to assist with specific shipping narratives (I think this ties in again to like. people need obstacles to justify why the characters aren't already in their cottage by the sea but once the characters are together they discard these obstacles even if they are systemic and would still exist, which makes for really bad fanfic bc it's clearly poorly plotted and thought out)

Me on why this campaign isn't good for shipping but a lot of the fandom showed up primarily to ship (might be the post that prompted this ask tbf)

Fandom monocropping (not my post)

My treatise on Imogen and Laudna specifically which honestly, even now that they are canon, still largely holds up re: the fandom and a related one about similarly fluff-centric Change is Evil and the highest order of fiction is Two Blorbos In A House With Zero Problems mentality (not by me but I've been part of that discussion)

[spandexual]

Shippy ask: who are your greatest hero/villain rivals to ever do it in a sentai

Insane (eh, only mildly) question: what's your most common "you sort of put my kink in this show but you did it WRONG so I'm just annoyed you came so close now"

Clothing advice: any advice for coordinating stuff in the bodysuit region to look like streetwear because I've seen a few people on the wild in them looking great lately and I would enjoy secretly feeling like a starship captain

I mean have you seen Gekiranger. Have You Guys Seen Gekiranger. I know you specifically have but You, Reading This, Have You Seen Gekiranger? Tiger vs. Lion, literally feral untamed wild child raised by pandas in the forest vs elegant arrogant ambitious little princeling with a simpering girlknight at his side, purity and fury vs corruption and bitterness... You Guys... Jan and Leo (and I'm not calling him fucking Rio he's a LION the same way no one calls Mele the CHAMELEON "Mere" despite that being what dumbshit John Toei wrote in the mook) are the absolute peak of sentai hero/villain ships. Actually I would say the peak of toku hero/villain ships entirely. gaijug is just below and then like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis far underneath those two is like, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh actually idk, whatever KR hero/villain ship ppl have convinced themselves is peak ig. KR doesn't do very good hero/villain come to think of it. I guess it's because of all the main/secondary like how every sentai has its red/sixth (and usually red/blue too but I feel like that's not actually as common as ppl make it out to be, I think a lot of it is people just wanting an episode 1 ship)

Honestly, if my kinks show up in shows at all, they're often done perfectly bc people don't think they're sexual so don't have to pretend they're not (eg. The Stig being essentially a moto-drone like WOW) or the entire premise of the show is based around it (... like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, even though the suits have not been as sexy as I'd like lately) lmao. I did get a bit annoyed at The Orville for giving Isaac (very sexy faceless kind of evil robot) a human appearance and emotions at first but the whole arc was his sexy milf doctor girlfriend going "ehhh actually I like you more when you're a sexy faceless kind of evil robot" which is incredibly based (as is the fact his sexy milf doctor girlfriend is The Sexy Outfit Wearer of the show a la Deanna Troi despite being a canon mother of a teenage boy and visibly middle-aged). ummm but I think all shows should have more crossdressing that isn't for jokes and more femdom or at least FLRs that aren't "bitch wife controls wimp man" coz like ew

Bodysuits are pretty easy to style casually! If you're talking more leotard style that are like a top with a crotch and no legs then a really sexy thing to do is wear low waisted bottoms so the skin on your hips is showing. Kind of like an advanced whaletail lol. Looks best if the bottoms are big baggy jeans/trackies or really slutty tiny pleated/otherwise voluminous miniskirts, I'd stay away from anything tight, small top big bottom energy yk. If you're talking about the full-body tight catsuit type, I think they're always gonna look a bit costumey, but you can still style them. Wearing a cropped/waist-length non-tight jacket over the top always looks super cool, look at 80s Rogue from X-Men! A floor-length coat would look cool too, rather than balancing the silhouette like with the baggy jeans or puffy jacket, it reduces the sex-costumey look by de-dramatising the silhouette by giving it a solid background. There's a lot of ways to play around! Bodysuits are essentially an inner layer the way tshirts and leggings used to be lol so you can honestly do whatever but I think if you want to be stylish you can't go wrong with the balancing act.

[lunar-years]

Ngl when I see ppl shipping Jamie and Dr. O'Sullivan I think they're at least a little homophobic and very straight.

well, i disagree with a blanket accusation of homophobia, but I do think it's an opinion that holds a very ~straight appeal~, definitely, lol.

there are honestly a boat load of reasons i hate it but they boil down to:

i kind of get why people (esp. a segment of the general audience) might be attracted to it because it's soooo something (bad) shows/sitcoms would do. Like, my god is it TRITE. Predictable, formulaic...boring as all hell! Of course he's going to get with the nameless sister who has less than five minutes total of screen time, just for a little added spice and drama, sure. That's what happens in (bad) shows. But luckily for the rest of us, Ted Lasso even at its worst is not that brand of bad, lol.

it's completely baseless? Nothing wrong with a baseless ship i guess, but at the same time...literally why this one? lol. Like, Jamie and Roy's sister share one scene together in which I don't believe they even say anything to one another directly? There is no chemistry, no...anything? The entire premise for the ship seems to be Jamie telling Roy his sister is hot. Which was very clearly intended as a way for Jamie to get under Roy's skin. Nothing about the scene makes me want to see those two dating.

the big proponents of it i've seen (often, definitely not always) seem to fit into one of two categories 1) people who don't really like Jamie and/or are upset Jamie "got in the way" of their ship, and thus want him to be written into a corner that pulls him away from their preferred couple/inherently shuffles up their dynamic. they don't actually care to watch a plot between Jamie & Roy's sister, they just want Jamie firmly categorized as Taken and thus Not Interested in Roy and/or Keeley, and this is a convenient and predictable(y stupid) way to do it. lol.

OR 2) people who DO really like Jamie and in fact really like Roy & Jamie, but in a very "no homo" way, who want to see more of their dynamic and have a way to define/further explore their closeness, whilst also justifying their own enjoyment of it, that's well set apart from "they have homoerotic tension." Jamie & Roy's sister dating holds an appeal because it more explicitly puts their relationship into firm "brotherly" territory. And I unabashedly loathe that for the same reason i loathe "Roy is Jamie's father figure!" ...foremost because no really, they can just be best friends!! Even if you do not want to ship roy-jamie romantically, you do not need to slap different familial labels on them (or put them into random other pairings) to make their relationship "more." Their relationship is already "more"...they are canonically best friends!! idk if I'm explaining this in the best way but the mindset behind it often feels very rooted in ~the nuclear family is the most important relationship a person can achieve~ and thus a need to fit everyone into traditional family roles (and in some cases that PLUS blatant homophobia) and it gives me a personal ick. Ew.

If you want to see quirky jamie & phoebe antics or roy and jamie bickering, Jamie x Roy's sister getting it on is in fact not actually necessary for any of that? (and imo doesn't add anything to anyone's arc) Going back to point one...using that pairing to get there feels TO ME very boring and sitcom cartoony.

(i also obviously dislike it for my personal shippy reasons and must acknowledge my bias. 🫡 Jamie dating his best friend's sister when he clearly has a crush on said best friend is a relationship-based mental low point/cry for help i do not actually want him to go through as my fav character, LOL.)

(disclaimer: people can of course feel differently and are entitled to ship whoever they want without even needing a clear reason or explanation! that's totally valid! i want to reiterate I don't think it's inherently problematic as a ship. I just personally think it's a rotten tomato of a plot point and i'm so beyond glad the show didn't waste time entertaining it.)

[inchidentally]

(screencapped to stay out of the tags)

I'm going to be bundling my other tricky asks as always in one post under a cut but this one as actually a learning curve for me as someone who doesn't really follow Max stuff.

I genuinely hadn't realized just how much time Lando had spent with Max privately and non-F1 weekend related. I'm not esp a Max fan which would explain me missing a lot but I did know they had a pretty solid friendship that dated more closely to his friendship with George and Alex - but damn that's way more time spent with Max than any other driver this season!

what's funny too is that Max is actually super happy to be physically affectionate in a flirty way with other guys similar to how Lando is. Carlos is only like that with certain guys, namely Charles and guys his own age that he deems as "pretty". but as someone who pulled shippy shit from any car|ando interaction I can honestly say that the "ooh they touched in a sexy way!" stuff was just how Lando is with guys. Carlos firmly has Lando in the little brother/friend space and literally says he thinks Lando is "cute" and that it's weird when people ask them to kiss. and yes, they have dinner sometimes and travel on the same plane sometimes to the next race - but just this season Lando did that with Daniel and Oscar and Max as well.

so surely Max including Lando in all this personal life stuff and spending time together online and in Monaco during the winter break is a HUGE threat to car|ando? I genuinely can't and don't want to try and understand the larry mentality of RPF but if I had to guess then it's something as wild as them considering Max as already part of a major RPF ship (|estappen or maxtie|) that's supposedly ALSO taking place under cover of all these "fake" girlfriends? man I wish I could remove the terms "beard" and "escort" from these people's vocabulary.

I've also got an ask that apparently charlos causes rage for both |estappen and car|ando bc they have an agenda that Charles and Carlos hate each other but then keep getting infuriated when Charles mounts Carlos or Carlos won't stop touching Charles' thighs or they try to kiss for the millionth time. akgfsakfgaf how exhausting must it be keeping these theories going I caaaan't

but returning to your ask yea fact is that Lando is way closer and more of a friend outside F1 with Max than Carlos. they meet up probably the same amount during the drivers parades as car|ando and sometimes even get handsy. but I guess somehow that's different ?? even when Lando has teased that RB would be his only temptation away from McLaren and Christian Horner wants to en plein air fuck Lando ???

from what I can tell, Daniel was never considered a threat to car|ando which continues to be bizarre bc purely objectively again, I would say he's more of a friend outside F1 to Lando than Carlos. not by a whole lot but Daniel and Lando share road trips and private flights and Lando fits into Daniel's friend group really well. I guess maybe since Daniel's just widely loved in fandom in general there was less motive to try and tear down his relationship with Lando?

that's true, I also seem to recall starting to see this anti-landoscar BS starting around Japan/Oscar's contract extension. I suppose if I were trying to look at it through their angle then the Japan and Qatar double McLaren podiums coming right after Singapore - including Oscar's extension - would be seen as some kind of "insult" ? I guess Oscar went from being cute and non-threatening to suddenly cockblocking the Carlos back to McLaren pipe dream (that Carlos would literally only do as a fifth or sixth option and only if Ferrari gave him the boot lol). especially since Lando insisted on being crazy happy about the double podiums instead of I guess wistfully thinking of how much he wishes he could play second fiddle to Carlos getting the only non-RB win of the season instead of trying to idk help his team and himself in the standings.

then there was the crazy mood swing when Lando and Carlos went to dinner after Mexico and flew to Brazil together (with Rebecca) - to the rage when it turned out that Lando hanging out in Brazil for a day or two after the race wasn't car|ando bc Lando went to Cali almost immediately for sponsors meetings while Carlos and Rebecca both posted pics and video of their private holiday together that went right up until the day before the Vegas race. I definitely saw the uptick in car|ando agit prop after that whole shebang bc then Carlos wanted Rebecca at the "car|ando cup" and kept checking in on her. the hatred towards her truly took on a whole ugly and dark turn after that.

it is still so damn weird that Oscar/landoscar is the target that it is for them though. I have another ask where in some F1 group Christmas art the artist depicts Lando interacting with Carlos and not Oscar and ??? it's a drawing??? and I'm assuming they don't rate Lily's existence as security for car|ando since apparently any woman can be conveniently written off as a fake gf. but Oscar doesn't play gay with Lando and he didn't push for a bromance and generally keeps himself to himself unless Lando wants him around! he's a Lando fanboy but he's not even hardcore pushing content of him and Lando on his sm! the poor guy is literally just standing there catching strays bc of a mainstream bromance that has nothing to do with him

I'm sorry anon this went so wide of what you were saying but genuinely I used to spend so much of my time on car|ando accounts and it's slowly turning into a larry "they are looking to each other" edit type fandom ;__;

but fr why does Oscar get put in the "we hate the real life girlfriends" category ?????? I genuinely laugh bc it's so insane why isn't he like Max or Daniel why is he That Fake Bitch Standing In Our Ship's Way and they aren't is it bc he's prettier and serves natural cunt afglajfgalgfslafg

[riacte]

Um hii so I may have something to add to the "duo name" discussion going on.

Fanmade duo names are generally established to separate them from shipping. Which is a good idea and we should continue to make an effort to tag shipping. But you know what else is a fanon concept? Not the idea of two CCs being good friends irl, but the fannish idea of shipping their characters. (Excluding CCs who are married / together). So instead of coming up with fanon names for platonic duos who are friends irl, I think we should come up with fanon names for the fannish concept of shipping (who are not together irl / whose characters are not together).

I'm not into QSMP so I cannot speak for that side and I know y'all have a different shipping culture, so this is more for hermitshipping / trafficshipping.

I can't verify this statement but in this post, OP mentions Joe and Cleo didn't want a duo name because they felt like a word + duo couldn't represent their years of friendship. And I can imagine this to be true for many duos especially in HC, which has been going on for so long. Instead of trying to “define” friendship with a word, we can shift the focus to making up a fan name for the fannish concept of shipping them.

Case study 1: Renchanting / Treebark

The ideal scenario: CCs make their own canon platonic name, shippers make their own fannish name for shipping. Treebark is a pun, it's vague, it doesn't overtly mention Ren or Martyn or their brands, and like the more niche duo names, you need to put in effort to understand what this means. Which makes it perfect for shipping in the sense we try to "hide" it. I know people have said it can be frustrating when you see a new duo and don’t know what it means, but I think it’s okay for ship names because they are by design meant to be obscure. You have to make an effort to look for it and understand what it means.

Case study 2: Convex / Cubscar (Ranchers / Solidaritek (?) also goes here)

I think it's called Cubscar based on Cubscar Week? Anyways, a slightly less ideal scenario than Treebark but still very very good. Canon name for platonic stuff, name mashup for romantic stuff. Less elegant that Treebark but it works so who cares. If it works, it works.

Case study 3: Flower Husbands

FH is different in the sense it’s a canon romantic ship and the CCs made the name themselves. I guess FH is still used for platonic but romantic FH would probably be best tagged with shipping to differentiate it.

Case study 4: Rendoc (aka. is this platonic or romantic or what) (Renskall also goes here)

Rendoc is like FH but?? It’s both a ship name and a duo name?? SHIPrendoc? They made it themselves hello?? Rendoc has been around long enough that we just use it for whatever. Like FH, romantic Rendoc should probably be tagged with shipping.

Case study 5: Fress / Stresskall

Long established ship names that sometimes gets used for platonic because it’s faster and we don’t have canon names (at least I think we don’t?). At least I use it for platonic too. It’s different from Rendoc / Renskall in the sense we don’t get a “haha yes ship us” from the CCs. And I think we have enough common sense to tell whether a post is meant to be shippy or not. Eg. “YESS FRESS CRUMBS IN NEW EPISODE!” (about canon platonic interaction), “omg fress in your au is so cute” (depends on context? What’s the AU?), “I think Fress should kiss” (overtly romantic).

These dynamics in particular have been around long enough that it feels weird trying to make a duo name for them (like Jleo). Like, I would rather call platonic Stress+Iskall with Stresskall than, fuckass allium duo or whatever. If it’s tagged with shipping, it’s meant to be seen as shipping. In the absence of canon names, sometimes using name mashups is faster and more efficient.

There are of course exceptions for everything: eg. Desert Duo is well established enough and it’s a good contrast to Scarian. But I think for more niche duos / ships, we can kind of get away with using name mashups? In the absence of canon names?

But I think name mashups are still seen as inherently shippy because that’s how other fandoms make their ship names. (Ironically one of my ships have the name “sniper duo” which is unrelated to mcyt duoification I promise, and is more used descriptively instead of as a tag) So we have to be careful with how we present name mashups especially in public spaces…?

I still think it’s better than making up duo names that few understand. And I think we should reserve our obscure names for the more obscure act of shipping instead. If it’s difficult to find out what it means, why not make it difficult by design? The name mashup tells you who they are, but the obscure ship name tells you explicitly it’s romantic. I know it’s hard trying to twist your thought process the other way because we’re so used to name mashups being for shipping (in other fandoms), but idk I just think it makes sense for fan names to be made for entirely fanmade concepts. And non fanmade concepts (friendships) can stay the way they are. Idk just some thoughts.

[sizzlinbaconpeach]

What do you think of Jill wearing more feminine outfits next to Carlos? I've never seen pictures of she in a dress with Chris. which means outside of work Chris has never seen her in a dress

https://twitter.com/dailystarsteam/status/1653583801463840769?t=e7FO7gnTMGWqEZIgCwdRpw&s=19

https://www.tumblr.com/sizzlinbaconpeach/720021109716779008/i-need-to-know-what-people-think-i-like-to-think?source=share

Here's the Jill and Carlos picture the Asker is referring to:

I want to start by saying that I can see how (especially) in the RE3Remake, Jill and Carlos do make quite a cute pairing. I feel like the remake did a much better job of making their relationship more 'shippy' and I liked Carlos a lot. I can totally understand if someone wants to ship Carlos and Jill.

I personally didn't see much romance between them in the OG RE3, but I understand that there are some slightly different paths with that game as well. Like you may get the above picture or a different one. I also know this can happen in the OG:

I'm glad Jill and Carlos have some respite after everything in RE3! Lord knows they both need it.

But I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Valenfield and they are my main RE ship.

Also, my sister and I joke that the poster Jill has on her apartment wall in the remake is of Chris (handsome dark haired biker dude who appears to have some military influences - we know Chris has a leather biker jacket and is ex-military. It might be a bit of a stretch but it also made us go 'Hmmm...') Source:

I could also go as far as to speculate (but should I? XD) that Jill (we don't actually see the persons face) is wearing one of Chris' shirts in the RE3Remake post-credits. Or at least it looks very much like Jill wearing a green shirt with a punching bag in the background (Chris has always been associated with the color green and punching boulders). But if you want to headcanon that it's Jill and Carlos I guess you could do that, too. (I think some people speculate it might be Rebecca as well, but I'm going with Jill)

Yes, Jill is definitely a woman who would wear cute feminine outfits if she wanted to. I have seen those pictures of Jill and Carlos at the end of RE3. It's always kind of fun when Capcom does things like that so you can determine for yourself what it means (like all these other points I've brought up, too).

But to come back to your initial point, I think there is definitely a chance Chris and Jill have seen each other in casual clothes over the many years they have known each other, which by Death Island will be about 20 years.

For example, you can read some entries from Jill's diary as bonus material in RE3 (the original), to which she mentions Chris in 3 out of the 4 entries. One entry even has her going over to Chris' apartment in the middle of the night. So did Chris see her in her pajamas? Maybe. Or maybe Jill wore her ugliest sweats and a huge trench coat. Maybe she suited up in her STARS uniform before going over? Maybe she did wear a really freaking cute outfit? Who knows. But what we do know is that she went over to his apartment in the middle of the night. My thought is that she went over in normal casual clothes.

There have been multiple subtle hints about how close Chris and Jill are in the series. Chris even writes to Jill that Claire may reach out to her about his whereabouts in his letter, found in the STARS office in RE2Remake. And that's why I like their ship so much, they have a lot of history together and care about each other deeply (whether you see them as romantic or not).

They are 2 of the original 11 founders of the BSAA. The BSAA rubs shoulders with some big government organizations and the like. Perhaps there has been a gala or fancy fundraiser or meet and greet with these organizations, which would mean Chris and Jill would attend in some formal wear. I'm not saying it happened, but it is within the realm of possibility.

And also, in RE5, Jill only tears off her cloak to reveal her skintight battlesuit once she's in front of Chris (And rips it open :O). Okaaayyy?? Girl has been missing her man for almost 3 years! Like... hmmmm.... lol. (No, honestly, I'm only joking, that whole ordeal breaks my heart for both of them - how traumatic it must be!)

So in short, I guess there is a chance that Chris and Jill have never seen each other in casual cute clothes, but their history and apparent connections (within canon) would more logically point to the fact that they have.

But Jill and Carlos are cute, too. Just not my favorite and first RE ship :)

I'm not here to start any shipping wars or anything. Just enjoying my current obsession :P

(Also, sorry if I sound ignorant, is there a cultural aspect that makes seeing someone in their casual clothes much more significant? I know RE is Japanese, so is it a big deal in Japanese culture? To our Western traditions, we usually place significance on seeing someone dressed up nicely)

[lnkedmyheart]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Thanks....

In no specific order. Did i take this opportunity to post pics of these characters? Yes.

Revy (Black Lagoon)

A dual wielding gunslinger from Roanapur. She is badass and deeply unhinged. A seriously traumatized woman with solid character flaws and a weirdly pseudo romantic relationship with the guy she kidnapped for a ransom and is now desperately trying to protect without realizing that she can't save his innocence, because he was never innocent and pure.

Fredrica Sawyer (Black Lagoon)

A cleaner from Roanapur, uses a chainsaw as her primary weapon, cannot talk due to a severe injury to her larynx and uses a voice synthesizer. An adorable and creepy goth girl who may or may not have in universe ties to the Texas Chainsaw massacre. Which yes, implies that black lagoon is set in the same universe as the TCM movies.

Dazai Osamu (BSD)

Love the depiction of depression and mental health problems with the guy. Love how he is constantly present everywhere and is seen through everyone else's perspective and yet we know so little about him. He is a dork and a brat and so annoying. He is usually aloof and distant but deep down has the capacity to be tender and kind that is only seen in the rare moments of vulnerability. But he is so hopeful and yet completely convinced he deserves nothing.

Chuuya Nakahara (BSD)

He's such a tragic character like his life is one compromise after another as he gets pushed further and further into a bad situation but he will not let that stop him from making the best out of his situation. His compassion and empathy for even those who hurt him is so powerful but his brutality and intelligence is another aspect that makes him stand out against the other characters of his kind. And then you have his incredible loyalty where he will cross all boundaries to protect those he considers his people. Gorgeous characterization honestly.

Yato (Noragami)

Another extremely tragic character and one who is trying so hard to change his fate despite everything. My guy does NOT catch a single break through the centuries he has been alive and he is still so hopeful. Not to mention letting Bishamon despise him for so long just to protect Kazuma, a guy he barely knew at the time. UGH. And his whole thing for Hiyori and his affection for Yukine. Kill me!

Yukine (Noragami)

This was the first time I cried honestly. His backstory had me curled up in my bed unable to eat for an entire day. And his growth from an annoying unlikeable brat to one of the most lovable characters is crazy. Also no, I will never not cry over Yukine calling Yato 'dad'.

Jeremy Pascal (Tales from the Gas Station)

I didnt realize how much I liked him till I thought he died. In that regard I'm like Jack I guess, neither of us realised how much we cared for this adorkable himbo ex cultist. The fact that he is genuinely heartbroken that his suicide cult abandoned him and committed without him is so...oddly endearing and just the energy he adds is charming. He's also such a great friend to Jack, man better start appreciating him more.

Sorey (Tales of Zestiria)

This is my son. And my sun. He is the most precious, sweetest boy to me. Aside from being ridiculously gay about Mikleo, the guy is what you'd think is a typical hero figure in such a setting. Pure, celibate, sweet and even tempered etc. But he is snarky as hell, constantly teases others, is NOT oblivious contrary to popular opinion. He is also irritable. I also love that he is an archaeology nerd.

Irma Lair (W.I.T.C.H)

I dont remember too much about her but I always really liked her. Enough that she is still amongst my absolute favorites. It probably helps that she was made wlw in the tv series and has some shippy moments with Cornelia in particular.

Balalaika (Black lagoon)

Listen, she is an ex military woman, who went MIA with her entire squad of loyal soldiers and now runs the fucking mafia in Roanapur. Woman is gorgeous and has acid burn scars all down her face and body. And she is terrifying. She will break necks with a smile and values loyalty and efficiency above all else. But she is such a deeply damaged woman who deserved better. But see, the people in Roanapur are there cause this is their last stand before they end up dead.

[findafight]

Let’s get dangerous! 3, 9, 13, 17 and 19.

Choose Violence ask game oh. you really are being dangerous lol

9. worst part of canon

not enough time to actually build character development and dynamics and flesh things out more, so it's all monster plot all the time instead of them planning and plotting and processing and bonding in tiny moments. i miss 20-24 episode seasons I miss "filler" episodes. we deserve a ST beach episode...

also dustin and steve both being made comic relief and Dustin's trauma and steve's injuries being ignored.... bubba should see a physician his gonna get sepsis :(

13. worst blorbofication

ooooof. Eddie probably. people keep trying to make him cool or suave or whatever and that's simple not the case. I know in my heart that boy has crawled up a river bank on all fours talking like golum. He is a loser. He is not cool. That's okay and good actually. We need more unsmooth people representation, and Eddie is just a scared little guy!

often too it happens that they just make him...not be brash or kind of a jerk? When he is! It's okay you're blorbo doesn't have to be someone you would have been friends with in highschool! He was loud and walked on tables and made fun of people! He was sort of mean! he wasn't perfect or always nice and kind. He's a weirdo who is sometimes cruel and that's okay he can totally get better!!

I think part of it is that a portion of the fandom has bought into the false dichotomy that the show tries to press on us of jocks vs nerds and that they are enemies or something and that nerds are always or almost always on the side of the good, and jocks are not. So because Eddie is a nerd and made fun of jocks, he is therefore someone that is often right, even if her messes up sometimes but it's okay because he's a nerd, whereas (usually) Steve has to play perpetual make up for the crime of messing up and being a dick when he was sixteen while also playing and enjoying sports. and it's like please!!! I'm tired of this!!! stop hating on sports and thinking people who like them have some moral failing they must make up for just because you don't know what a batting average is or whatever! (and he should have apologized to Lucas)

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

More fics should let characters be actually angry at being hurt or wronged. Let them rage! especially Lucas! I want him to be able to express his hurt and upset about how all his friends but Steve and Robin abandoned him and played the finale without him! Only Erica brought it up to him, I want MORE apologies to Lucas!!

on that note let Steve be angry when wronged too! let him be upset and not quietly accept an apology let him lay out why he was hurt and angry!

19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

I have nothing I'm really ashamed of in fandom? on occasion I love a good whump fic or a fic that is sometimes. Very mean about certain character/s lol. Though st has got me writing some steamy pieces which I wasn't really expecting! haha

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

(there are so many bad takes floating around which to choose... I guess here's two, saved for last) once saw someone say max abused b!lly by drugging him in s2 and i just had to sit there like......brother WHAT are you talking about. You mean the 13yo girl watching her 17 y/o step brother continue to beat an unconcious 17 y/o and used the sedative to stop him?? One time? To stop him killing someone in front of her and her friends? Someone who had protected them twice that night? From her brother whom she was scared of??? Who had demonstrated abusive behaviour towards her??? Who she had to threaten to stop trying to hurt her or her friends? That one was fucking WILD I can't believe it's real. What the hell.

Also i know it was probably just light a hearted shippy thing but I saw one that was so much a take as it was an au but it had robin lie in the starcourt bathroom by saying she had a crush on tammy instead of Nancy and I was so mad at not only the defiling of the Sacred Stobin Scene, but also that it then means their entire friendship is based on a lie and it would be such a betrayal? (it wouldn't make sense at all anyways [to me] but also) Like. She'd have been lying to her best friend, her soulmate, her person she wants to combine with, for months not just about a crush but about the very moment of vulnerability that cemented their platonic love for each other!! I don't see how you can like robin or steve or their friendship and do that? it's not even about not liking rnce, I'd be mad about it if it was about any other ship too, it's about loving stobin most. idk it feels so icky to me

[allthefujoshiunite]

Have you watched Buddy Daddies? If you have do you like it?

Random ask....Do you think anime like Free, Sk8, Jeweler Richard and Yuri on Ice are queerbaiting or at least have semi canon couples? I mean I love those anime series and my fav otps are from those series, but what do you think?

P.s Love your latest meta, it really made my day and when I read them, I also found answers to my internal questions my self...Thanks for sharing them...( I'm not the anon who asked that)...

💐🌷🥰🤩

Hello! Today's great coincidence that made me chuckle into my morning tea was getting asked about my opinion on queerbaiting by two different people, 1-hour apart 🤣 Thanks a lot, both of you! I'll put my two cents down about queerbaiting discourse in anime and I know it's silly to mention but just to be sure, these are all opinions, and my opinions only. 

Before I start rambling about gays, no I haven't seen Buddy Daddies yet. I've been very excited about it ever since I've seen the PV but as you may know, I decided to review every first episode of the Winter 2023 season so I'm pretty much swamped... I'm saving Buddy Daddies to savor it! If you wait a bit, you'll be reading my first impressions of it soon. 

So. Okay. Queerbait. First of all, definitions because for the love of BL gods, people have been throwing words around without knowing what they mean. 

According to this interesting book that's been sitting on my TBR pile, Queerbating and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, the definition of queerbaiting is as follows: 

Queerbaiting describes an industry tactic where “those officially associated with a media text court viewers interested in LGBT narratives... without the text ever definitely confirming the nonheterosexuality of the relevant characters.” For this reason, the term is seen as exploitative, and when fans use it to describe a series, its marketing, or the actions of producers, they are engaging in a “form of queer activism.”

There are other terms coined by the scholars such as "covert courting" (i.e. targeting gay consumers using subtle elements not intended to be picked up by heterosexual audiences) etc. but in my opinion, these terms are built upon the presupposition that there is a queer audience to bait into consuming your media. And I'm not sure whether there's a group of audience that is acknowledged as queer in the minds of producers and/or creators in Japan. 

What they want to tap into according to yours truly, however, is FujoMoney. No, it's not a new currency, although now I kind of wish it was. There's an interesting video on it that delves deeper into the topic but in short, they are after the buying and creating potential of shippers. Creating fan content is, in itself, a grey area legally but it's overlooked because the franchise profits from it immensely. A similar practice, if you're or have been into K-pop at some point, is the fansites. Normally, they shouldn't be allowed to make merchandise off of the artists and gain profit from it. However, they attend concerts out of their own pockets, take these photographs using their own cameras, and contribute greatly to the group or the individual artist's popularity. Tl;dr: it's free real estate for the companies. 

So I guess the term we're looking for is fujobait, rather than queerbait. What the higher-ups want to attract are shippers who are buyers and/or fancreators. Look at any sports anime and you'll see. There have been multiple times when I got into a series because I've seen a shippy fanart or a video edit of a character. And to be honest, if I was more fortunate economically, they'd be making that kind of monetary profit through merch off of me as well. xD

While queerbait and fujobait might seem like they mean the same thing, they eventually are not because the former capitalizes on real-life stigmatized identity while the latter relies on a consumer's practice of queering the content at hand. I'm personally not as interested in putting the label of "right" or "wrong" on these terms, so I'll leave it at this for now. 

Moving on to the series you mentioned, they can't all be put into the same box, but can be divided into two groups where Free and Sk8 rely more on fanservice and the intricacies of the relationships are left to the shippers' imaginations while Jeweler Richard and Yuuri!!! on ICE are entirely different. Especially, Yuuri!!! on ICE because there's no room left for discussion or different readings that Yuuri and Victor are a couple. They literally get married, and the only reason some people still to this day question whether they are canon or not is because of eurocentrism/racism. I come across reels of real-life women taking a ring out and putting it on the ring finger of another woman with people cheering in the background and no one is asking to see their marriage registration in the comments. On the contrary, they congratulate them! The exact same scene is there in animated form, so why do we even question its validity? 

In the case of Jeweler Richard, sadly light novels aren't my thing. I have only seen the anime and have read the first volume of the manga. However, I've read an extensive blog post on the light novels comparing them to the anime adaptation. From the blog post, their relationship is evident even though to an anime-only it might come off as implied. I personally didn't think it was implied even in the anime, but if anyone else did, we have our answers in the source material. 

All of this then begs the question: does having things spelled out on screen matter? If yes, to what extent it matters? I mentioned in the previous meta post that the consumers of Asian media are already lucky when it comes to the existence and variety of such content. I'm personally someone who's in favor of having media to consume at hand instead of waiting for the Perfect Representation. I don't even want representation, because what is representation anyway for a non-monolithic community with a deep, rich history? I want portrayal, and while having things openly said is cathartic and something I want to have, I won't discredit the works I enjoy and find meaning in just for the sake of it. Especially content that come from countries with heavy censorship or a high possibility of GP backlash.

Plus, while I'm not in any Chinese BL or BL-adjacent work fandoms, I watched dramas here or there and have a lot of mutuals who are actively in the fandoms of certain series, so through osmosis, I learn a couple of things as well. I've seen people talking about the cultural significance of certain choices in these works that someone who's not well-versed in the codes of the Chinese culture won't be able to pick up, i.e. characters wearing red can be an insinuation on marriage because red is a color worn in weddings. Or there's no way I would pick up that Chinese BL dramas are dubbed over just so they can pass censorship. Would it be better if China were to be supportive of LGBTQA+? 100%. Should people there push for the content they'd like to see or portrayals that they see themselves in? Without a doubt. Should it mean that they should get nothing until they get exactly what they want? A hard no. There must be still works that portray such relationships even if they are implied because I see this attempt as getting a foot in the door. 

To sum everything up: what I want is to enjoy what I read/watch and share it with others while trying to keep a critical eye on as much as I can. My background is in STEM and I'm not formally educated in humanities anyway. What I try to do is to read and discuss questions I have in mind, and writing helps me order and expand my thoughts. I find value in trying to keep an open mind instead of gatekeeping and micro-analyzing every little thing, or at least, I try not to let them take the fun out of it. To quote the great Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts:

I am not interested in hermeneutics, or erotics, or metaphorics, of my anus. I am interested in ass-fucking.

Easily one of the best books I've read in 2022. Pure brilliance.

[orphanedwolfandfriends]

So fellers, I can't promise that this'll be the last post I make about them. They don't fucking listen when they're the reason why nothing's going their way. I may be petty, but blocking, reporting, and IP banning them with the handy dandy statcounter is STRONGLY recommended (if you can afford to anyway, statcounter has a monthly payment thing).

I personally suspect that they have an alt account that none of us are aware of, and I'll say with full confidence that I could be wrong.

I started knowing they existed on account of their dry writing and their godmodding, and after, they'd start to ask a mutual some intrusive and condescending messages on why they're so kind to me. Not my character apparently, me. They don't bother to learn character names and just use URLs to shit talk. They'd ask why there's fanart of my woof child and their muse, which lmao, why's that a fucking problem? Mind your own beezwax. They would also bombard that mutual with asks about their shadowban issue, why can the mutual see other people's asks instead of theirs, and the most the mutual could do was tell them what it means and how they can fix it (which they never did). And as you might've seen earlier, they said me drawing fanart of fictional characters was "weird" and talked about it like it was self insert art I was doing. Self insert art's not even an issue to begin with but yet they took it personally lmao. Perish. Also I wouldn't make my self insert be a fucking child, and the art wasn't even shippy in the slightest.

It got to the point where my mutual blocked them, and they moved onto a Vegeta blog, and really milked that cow dry for how long they'd keep messaging them and whining about them not jivin' with the godmodding, along with complaining to that Vegeta and someone else about everyone making bad comments about their oc. If you look into their blog, you'll see that this person does not have a bio what so ever. Not even in a separate post. So quite clearly they're just expecting everyone to submit to her Mary Sue powers despite the fact we know nothing about them. They even info dumped the same Vegeta through an ask which, dude. Limited text. Look it up.

And then, they would bombard a Raditz rper and bitch about how he's not submitting to their random stranger shit while Raditz accepted a fucking BLT from one of my adult muses, bombard an oc blog like "you're flirting with Raditz, I can tell, your oc's not any better than MINE", AND, try to act like they're such a hotshot at writing, which as you might've guessed, they're not. And they're actively painting themselves in a bad light instead of listening to people and accepting boundaries. They also bugged the shit out of a Beerus mutual, and another mutual who writes ocs, just 'cause the other's muse was just vibin' and giving Beerus food. There's literally nothing wrong with that, yet they'd keep bugging the other mutual with shit like "oh beerus is only keeping you around 'cause you're giving him food, beerus isn't nice blahblahblah".

Do you see a pattern here? They'll get pissy when they don't get any attention from all four of those characters, and send jealous, petty bitch-sounding messages over two friggin children that are just being nice. Imagine being jealous of a fucking child. Actually suck in that shame like a juice box, 'cause that is PATHETIC. Jealousy is legitimately not a healthy thing to have, especially over something like roleplay, and when you actively guilt trip or shit talk them just 'cause of that, that's even more pathetic. And hella possessive. Good luck being possessive when the muns aren't interested in your oc to begin with lmao.

They also chased off somebody after stalking them for a full on year, as I've been told, which from people saying "that explains a lot" when I said who they were, that's...unsettling. Not surprising, but unsettling. And they're suspected to be another individual named Skye. I dunno if that's true but that's why I say "suspected."

TLDR; Please for your own sanity, block @phoenixissims and report them for their harassment. Do whatever you can to keep them far away from you as possible. The Dragon Ball side of the RPC is not the only RPC they've harassed over the years, so it isn't their first rodeo with being annoying and creepy. Do not waste your time with a message.

Now with all that out of the way, phoenixissims, go fuck yourself with a pitchfork, and everyone else? Have a nice rest of the month. I'm going back to my usual tomfoolery.

[convexicalcrow]

2022 End Of Year Fic Meme

So this is something I've done on another blog for many years now, but the last time I did it was 2019, and then the pando hit and I didn't have the energy to compile all my fic after that. But today's snowflake challenge prompt is to celebrate your wins, so I thought I'd actually do this at last and sum up all my Hermitcraft and Empires fic that I've written over the past year (and a lil bit), and reflect on everything I've written.

I have a pile of fic from my old fandom I should probably do this with as well but I think I'll do that elsewhere and also perhaps next week bc there's like twice the fic I need to sum up and I ain't got that time tonight lmao.

If you've never seen one of these before, maaaan, these get Long and I ramble a Lot, so feel free to skip if you're not that interested in fic stats and rambles. Also there will be shippy stuff in here just as a head's up. <3

AO3 Statistics 2022: User Subscriptions: 29 Kudos: 3,184 Comment Threads: 112 Bookmarks: 429 Subscriptions: 77 Word Count: 149,459 Hits: 38,644

Stats: Ficlets under 1,000 words written: 17 Short Stories between 1,000-10,000 words written: 35 Stories over 10,000 words: 3 Ficlets on Tumblr*: 6 Total Fics: 61

*I'm only counting the ones I haven't edited and published to AO3 (yet)

Fandoms: 100 Hours of Hardcore Empires SMP Hermitcraft Kingdom Craft Life Series

Pairings: Cub/Scar 23 (can you tell when the ConVex hyperfixation set in >_>) Doc/Ren 4 The Vex/Cub 3 Ren/Cub 3 Ren/Martyn 3 Cub/Scar/Ariana Griande 2 Scar/Jimmy 2 Tango/Cub 2 Bdubs/Etho 2 Scar/Bdubs 2 Renbob/Doc 1 Grien/Joel 1 Martyn/Mumbo 1 Grimdog/Doc 1 Grian/Scar 1 Ren/Scar 1 Scar/Doc 1 The Vex/Cub/skulk 1 King Ren/The Red King 1 Ren/Bdubs 1 The Vex/Scar 1 Katherine/Cub 1 The Vex/Bdubs 1 Scar/Cub/Ren 1 Tango/Jimmy 1 Sausage/Keralis 1 Doc/Bdubs 1 Doc/Etho 1 Doc/Cub 1 Joel/Sausage 1 Cub/Jarvis 1 Joel/Lizzie 1

Friendships/Other Relationships: Cub & Scar 6 Ren & Bdubs 3 Ren & Doc 3 Cub & Iskall 2 Sausage & Pearl 2 Ren & Martyn 2 Ren & Lizzie 2 Etho & Bdubs 2 Cub & Bdubs 1 Cub & a llama 1 Imagineer Scar & HotGUy Scar 1 Cub & Ren 1 Sausage & Santa Perla 1 Sausage & Saint Bdubs of the Sun 1 Cub & Xisuma 1 Ren & Scar 1 Pearl & Scar 1 King Ren & Scar 1 The Vex & Bdubs 1 King Ren & The Red King 1 Tango & Bbubs 1 Tango & Jimmy 1 Tango & Grumbot Prime 1 Grian & Pearl 1 Ren & Tomato Yoshi 1

Average Word Count: 2527.63 words Total Word Count (2022): 149,459 (AO3) + 4727 (ficlets)= 154,186

List of Fanworks:

100 Hours of Hardcore Hunting For A Kiss (455 words)

Life Series Sacrilege and Sacrifice (6,370 words) Through The Fog Of War: Vignettes From Session Seven (1,507 words) You're the B.E.S.T. (1,058 words)

Empires SMP Black Heart (1,453 words) Charisma Level 6000 (1,658 words) Fading Into Darkness, Clinging To The Light (5,002 words) Fog (18,076 words) Hard Wood (983 words) Here Comes The Vex Again (631 words) Legacy (941 words) Moonbeams (2,961 words) Songs From The Old Country (3,589 words) Stripped Wood (876 words) The Midnight Sun (1,679 words) The Restless Dead (1,108 words) Vexed Devotion (3,356 words) Vicegrip (1,030 words) What's Yours Is Mine (462 words)

Hermitcraft #askjarvis (672 words) A Different Kind Of Magic (550 words) A Small Price To Pay (3,339 words) A Vex Never Works Alone (3,047 words) Another Sunset (3,612 words) Blood Moon Rising: The Madness of Rendog (11,863 words) creep (3,766 words) Five Times Bdubs Was Hunted Around The Crastle (500 words) Free Glass Straight To The Heart (2,337 words) Guess Who? (1,631 words) His Name Is Cubfan135 (1,850 words) HoTGuY: The Seige (2,994 words) Hunting Party (20,222 words) hurts so good (3,359 words) Icicles (2,917 words) Kongen Befaler (1,121 words) Language Barriers (894 words) mirror, mirror… (917 words) Mistress of the Dance, Lady of Joy (1,688 words) Moon Big Trauma… But With Llamas! (3,386 words) Occlusion (3,207 words) Ride The Lightning (591 words) Sacred Waters (1,900 words) sacrosanct (741 words) skulk whispers (941 words) Split/Seconds (100 words) Sway (933 words) The Burning One, who seizes what his heart desires (1,471 words) The Streets Of Scarland (1,774 words) two beds and a mattress store (622 words) Uncomfortably You, Uncomfortably Me (1,257 words) Vexcraft (2,722 words) When You Were Mine: A Collection of RenDoc Drabbles from Season Sixfinity (1,200 words)

Hermittober/Life Series Hermittober 2022 Drabble Collection (4,407 words)

Kingdomcraft SMP masquerade (2,583 words) armour love (1,150 words)

Tumblr Ficlets: Pharaoh Cub and Sphinx Scar (646 words) Evoker Cub and Allay-Turned-Vex Scar (891 words) Cub Zombie Apocalypse AU (312 words) ConVex Knight AU

part one (451 words)

part two (953 words)

part three (1474 words)

The Questions!

My best story of this year:

Through The Fog Of War: Vignettes From Session Seven. I threw all my devastation into that fic, and it turned out perfectly. I would change absolutely nothing about that fic. It was cathartic and painful and didn't dim my Ethubs grief but it did help process it.

Last Life was the first of the Life series that I'd watched live, and session seven absolutely wrecked me frfr. ;_;

My favourite story of this year:

Fog, I think. I loved the process of writing it, drafting it on tumblr as the ideas came to me and then editing it later for AO3. I've never really done that with a fic before, because I was always mostly on twitter and I never really used other journals for that kind of writing. But to have tumblr now where I can just throw ideas out and see how they work? That changed how I write so much, and Fog was the first chaptered work I'd done, and I think it came out so well. I went mad on skulk Cub for two weeks, but the fic that came out of it was cohesive, deep, and felt very satisfying by the end of it. I will forever love that fic as my favourite, I think, just because of how I could see people responding to the chapters as I posted them and getting that kind of feedback was so nice. It kept me writing and seeing how to best resolve the story in the most satisfying way.

My worst story of the year:

idk if it's worst per se, but I do think I could have done Split/Seconds a lot better than I did. I was crunched for time and that usually means I write drabbles but it could easily have been longer if I'd let it. I might have fleshed it out and done something more interesting with that moment than what felt like just rehashing what actually happened.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Songs of the Old Country, if only because religious world building is kind of a niche thing I think? And maybe it's not as interesting to others as it is to me. >_>

Most overrated story, in my opinion:

This is more in terms of my own inspiration and interest in it but HoTGuY: The Seige. I had a whole thing planned out for it, and life just derailed my work on that fic entirely so it now sits forgotten and I wish I'd given it the time it deserves bc it was going to be a great fic. I just got distracted and yeah.

Most fun story to write:

You're The B.E.S.T., bc who doesn't want a Team B.E.S.T. boy band AU amirite? I loved channelling all my 90s teen boy band nostalgia into that one and I adore the flow of it. It just works perfectly. I have thought about writing follow-ups but I'm not sure I could do it the justice they deserve.

Most representative of you as a writer:

Hunting Party, I think. It's long, kinky as fuck, and contains a lot of the kinky elements I love writing, as well as some new ones that I think worked really well in that setting.

That, and all the trans!Cub fic lmao. I cannot do fandom without writing trans fic I stfg. XD (fics include: masquerade, armour love, mirror mirror..., Sacred Waters)

Contains characterisation you're proudest of:

One of the things I work hard on when I write fic is getting the voices right, bc if you can nail that, you're halfway to getting the characterisation right. And for me, Fog and Occlusion are my picks for this question bc of False. She has quite a distiinctive voice, and I wasn't confident of getting it right when I was first writing her. Helpfully, at the time I was writing ch 8 of Fog, Cub was streaming some MCC practice with False (iirc) so I had that to refer to as I was writing. I don't always write when I'm watching streams but if it's a voice I want to write well, I do use streams for that for sure.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

creep for sure. First time writing predator/prey kink and I had a feeling it would work for Ren and Doc but I didn't know until I'd written it and saw how well it just worked for them both.

Story with the sexiest moment:

Mistress of the Dance, Lady of Joy. There's a moment when Ariana invites Scar to play as well and with the three of them getting involved, it just feels like such joy to me, which was the whole point of this fic.

Most sexy story:

Oh god there's so many. XD But I'll probably say Sacred Waters. I adore that fic so much. The flow of it, the structure, the drabble-length paragraphs/scenes, how it all just feels ever so slightly disorienting while also being so tender and filled with love and care. It's sexy and hot and soft and I love it so much. <3

Hardest story to write:

Through The Fog Of War: Vignettes From Session Seven. bc I didn't want to write about Bdubs and Etho, but I knew I had to, and boy did the tears flow as I wrote it.

Easiest story to write:

That Cub zombie apocalypse ficlet I posted on tumblr. Woke up with fic in my head and it went from there very easily.

Biggest disappointment:

Apart from the HotGuy fic, probably that I didn't get as much work done on the Pharaoh Cub fic I had planned to do for NaNo as I had wanted. It was set in a world I had used before in an origific novel but hadn't really done much with for many years, and I wanted to write Pharaoh Cub as an actual Pharaoh in Egypt with Scar at his side as well. I just didn't get as far along with it as I'd have liked. Ah well, there's always Camp NaNo! :D

Biggest surprise:

I wrote that fucking Grien/Joel fic I stfg. XD

Story you'd give to an editor as a writing sample:

Through The Fog Of War: Vignettes From Session Seven. I know I keep banging on about it, but I do think it's genuinely the best thing I've written in this fandom so far.

Story which has the best title:

Moon Big Trauma... But With Llamas!

Story I'd like to revise:

Split/Seconds, bc like I said above, I feel like I could have done a lot more with that idea than I did.

Story I wish I'd finished:

HoTGuY: The Seige. Just one of those ideas I ran out of steam with bc everything else happened and it got left to the side. :(

Story I didn't write but I swear I will:

Hmm. I don't have any I haven't started that I want to write at this point in time? Mostly I just have a collection of wips that I am slowly working my way through.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this last year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

Far more fic holy fuck. I felt I'd written a bit but seeing the word count up there, like, Maaaaaaan, it's been ages since I managed that much in a year. o.o

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in Jan 2021?

I mean, Hermitcraft and Empires fic tbh. I was in a totally different fandom in Jan 2021.

Did you take any writing risks this last year?

*gestures at the above answer* It's always a risk starting to write for a new fandom, especially as someone who's so very, very used to tiny fandoms. This is a much, much bigger fandom space and figuring out how to navigate it and find people I might gel with has been fun and a little intimidating tbh.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Not really? I don't do well setting goals for fic. I just write and see what happens.

[korereapers]

Title: Fated Encounters

Rating: T?

Fandom: Original, Dungeons and Dragons

Characters: Ohmrom von Allmen, Kore of the Eternal Forest. Background characters (Velia, Barkilara, Minthe)

Relationships: This is not a shippy fic, woa!

AO3

Kore sighs, her legs cramping a little after the long walk.

The Citadel is not too big, but it's always busy, so incredibly noisy that her ears hurt after years of having lived in the Eternal Forest. A perfect place to bury oneself among people, to hide oneself in plain sight. A tree in a forest, she guesses. Even someone like her doesn't attract anyone's attention, everyone being so used to each and every kind of being.

A tiefling is old news, apparently, when there's an anthropomorphic moth going around. Not that she is anyone to judge.

But she has no time to overthink. Thinking too much usually leaves her drained, and she has a tendency to remember what she shouldn't, and to dwell on it. Today, she is on a mission, she cannot afford to forget that. She cannot allow herself, the sounds and smells making it easy to lose herself to it all, her mind going back and forth towards her memories.

Minthe would like it here. She would really love it here. She should have been the one to represent the elves from the Eternal Forest, not her. A paladin of the forest, not just a cleric of death.

Kore keeps walking, trying to ignore her thoughts. It never really works.

The man she is supposed to meet is… apparently very conventional. The typical male human that would come to mind. The Citadel is also full of these, so she has to ask around a little. Trying to discern exactly which human she is looking for.

Chestnut hair, amber eyes. A beard that is a little bit too uneven, dark bags under his eyes, a perpetually worried expression. A blue armor, with a golden symbol on his shield.

Some people grimace when she describes him. A faint discomfort in their features that Kore doesn't quite understand. She was told the man was helpful, and nice enough. Visibly anxious, but genuinely sweet.

She is told that he can easily be found, both at the biggest pub in town, or at one of the different altars in the middle of the city. He is a man of faith, after all. Faith in both his god, and the mystical power of alcohol, apparently.

Kore is not a stranger to either of those. She may not be a heavy drinker, but running from your problems is an issue she knows well. They always seem to catch her, dragging her along, but she embraces the feeling eagerly. It's her fault after all. She wasn't there when her people needed her. When Minthe needed her.

It's only a matter of time before everyone leaves and she is alone. Shouldn't it have to be like that from the very beginning?

Dark eyes without pupils blink slowly, because she is on the verge of tears, and she cannot afford it. It makes her mad, really, how fucking useless and weak she feels.

She starts looking by the local pub, and the noise makes her tense immediately. One would have to be terribly drunk to zone out from the high decibels, so she takes a quick look and leaves.

She looks down to a piece of paper, the man's symbol drawn in it, an oval that has been broken and opened up. An omega , as someone from her people had called it. She recognizes the symbol, but she guesses it comes from a language she doesn't understand.

Maybe if he looks for the symbol on the many altars…

A very nice lady approaches her, luckily enough. She has six arms, and wings, and Kore mistakes her for a butterfly at first, but she realizes that the woman is, in fact, a moth lady. She reminds her of her own mother, genuinely nice and helpful, a little bit too nice for a place like this.

When Kore asks about the man she is looking for, the moth woman perks up a little, her wings buzzing a little. It's almost cute, in a way.

"Oh, I know him. I have seen him around, actually," she smiles awkwardly, pointing to one particular direction with one of her limbs. "He seemed particularly gloomy today. No way you'll miss his anxious energy."

Okay, that's weird. But her people say he is a man that can be trusted, and that's all that Kore needs. For now.

Indeed, the moth lady is right. She finds an altar with a very visible omega in one of those improvised temples, and in front of it, there is a human kneeling. His hair is a little dirty, eyes lost somewhere, as if he were having a very deep and intense talk with himself. He is not small by any means, bigger than any elf she has seen, broad shoulders and strong body, but he looks tiny like that, as if trying not to attract attention to himself, and failing miserably.

She knows a haunted person when she sees one.

Her staff gently hits the ground, trying to get his attention without disrupting him too badly. She actually sees fear on his features, oddly defensive for a man that is almost twice her size. As if he had seen a ghost. She realizes then that his armor is not very well kept, rust and blood making it look older than it probably is. The kind of dirt that never goes away no matter how much you try to get rid of it.

What makes her feel nervous are, in fact, his eyes. He does seem… stressed, no matter how much he tries to smile, a charming smile that is too shy and awkward to belong to a warrior like that. His eyes, his eyes feel strange when they are on her, because even if they are friendly, she feels… observed. Not in a creepy way, just… seen.

"Ah, sorry, did you want to pray, too?" He asks, and she realizes that his knees are trembling. It reminds her of herself, of when Minthe died, how she kept asking her lady Wee-jas for guidance, feeling guilty of even having the thought of having her wife back.

Death is nothing but life's counterpart, after all. A part of the cycle. That thought has never been enough to ease her sadness.

"I was looking for you, actually," she answers, and immediately feels the air tensing, anxiety on his features.

He smells of blood and sweat, and the presence she feels behind his eyes becomes even stronger. Both burning and chilling at the same time.

"What… did I… did I do something wrong?"

Spineless, and yet so dangerous. She can see indentations on his armor and shield, hits that should have killed almost anyone, and yet this man is still alive and breathing.

So she does the only rational thing.

"Are you stupid? Who would even think something like that? I come from the Eternal Forest, I'm your freaking contact. For the gods' sake"

The man blinks, slowly. Like a big puppy, his expression so guilty it makes her recoil from the emotional whiplash.

"Ah… sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me for my rudeness, I didn't expect-"

Kore raises her eyebrows, her skin even pinker in anger.

"Yeah, of course. You expected an elf. You get me, though. Deal with it."

He gulps, visibly intimidated by a woman that can barely reach his chin with her horns.

When he speaks again, her eyes widen, because she recognizes the language, but it's definitely not Common.

"I swear. I apologize. I harbor no kind of hatred towards your kind. You just… reminded me of someone I used to know."

That's in Infernal. A perfect Infernal, if she is being honest with herself. Humans don't usually know Infernal, even less such a pious man.

"What the hell," she states plainly, in Common, a little bit calmer when he actually chuckles, and behind all of that stressed energy, behind the sweat and the blood, he is actually kind of cute. 

She almost smiles at him, his aura suddenly devoid of any kind of threat. There is still something she cannot place, the feeling that they are not alone, but she doesn't really see anything out of place.

"It's a long story. A pretty boring one, too," he excuses himself, and Kore cannot really tell if he is lying. "But yeah! You seem to be a little tired from the trip. Do you mind if we chat while we grab some beer?"

Kore blinks at him, judging him silently. The man scratches the back of his neck, his smile nervous.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologizes too darn much. "Tea, then? And cookies?"

Kore does smile a little at that, her long eyelashes framing her pitch black eyes, her smile genuine, the kind that reaches her whole face.

The guy is just trying so hard to be nice.

"Just, don't think anything weird of it. I like women."

The human blinks at that.

"Ah, that's good. I like men."

Kore does let out a chuckle at that, and the man just smiles, a friendly smile that makes her forget about his whole unsettling aura. She will dig into that sooner or later.

He offers her his arm, such an old fashioned and chivalrous gesture it makes her roll her eyes.

"Care to join me, then? I'll answer all of your questions. Or most of them. You know."

Kore doesn't really know, to be honest.

"I'm good, I can walk by myself. But also, you haven't told me your name."

The man blinks, his face a little red from embarrassment.

"Oh, I'm so stupid. Sorry. It's Ohmrom," he pauses, as if giving it a thought. "Von Allmen. Ohmrom von Allmen."

He is not lying, and yet… there is something unsaid about that name. Kore shrugs. She wants to know if she can fully trust the guy, but she doesn't really give a flying fuck about his personal issues.

"Kore. Of the Eternal Forest."

Ohmrom's smile is genuinely friendly, and it reaches his eyes, but she feels something subtle behind them, a whisper, something she cannot quite reach. Something that doesn't fit a man who is, by all means, not just pretending to be nice to her.

"Nice to meet you, Kore. Something tells me you're going to love it here."

Kore doubts that, but she cannot really say no to tea and cookies, can she?

"We'll see… Now, about that tea…"

[ultravioart]

Relationship dynamics + a Ram x oc ship for my Mr. Support Omnic Deep Sea Welder oc (name pending), here are the ideas below: LONG text again, sorry lol. Color meanings: Does not get along, Suspect but sympathetic, friendly, and shippy.

Sombra: As per usual deep hacker shenanigans, she was able to figure out that this rogue omnic blowing up factories actually used to be human/have a family/is now an omnic running a human brain simulation of a real brain scan. (Insert some Sombra ARG 'hack the planet' vibes of her trying to figure out the big conspiracy, why would Vishkar meddle with human sentience/ai tech???) The oc is still very suspect of sombra, disliking the idea she could hack him at any time. Sombra's favorite animals are deep sea creatures so I can absolutely see her asking my oc for any pictures he's snapped of deep sea friends lol. My oc comes off as cold and stoic (leaning into the unnerving nature of the depths:tm:, of the unreadable retro-monster mystique of deep diver suits, and of his serious commitment to saving what he can of earth) but my oc would actually love discussing flora and fauna with enthusiastic participants. I doubt he would go out of his way to capture and show her pictures, but I can see him being all (squints) 'why didn't she hack me to access the pictures, is she toying with me by asking for permission?' only realize 'oh she respects my autonomy as an omnic... and human.' so there's that! I can see Sombra as being kind to him just as she is kind to Sigma. Less of a shallow "i pity you" and more of a well natured "well, someone needs to be nice to his guy"

Sigma: I think they have interesting conversations lol. Isolation has driven my oc's personality to be a bit unnerving to most humans, and I definitely think the depths have some kind of omnic influencing ai/signals down there controlling things like the Kaiju-bots. So I imagine venturing into certain underwater areas has made my oc second guess what he was seeing and hearing while in the middle of the oceanic dark abyss (again, my oc's human simulation saves him from complete control over his omnic systems). Weirdly enough, I think the two of them have this... understanding. Sigma definitely speaks in riddles, but my oc would get some of it, and even respond. Sigma has seen things, and while I think you could take Sigma's comment about the Iris as a joke or nonsense, I genuinely think he has seen it. So Sigma and my oc get along fairly well, with my oc treating Sigma like he had with his own aging grandparents when they team up. Outsiders are very wary of these two's convos lol, so the oc rarely discusses in depth with Sigma unless they are alone where they can talk freely. I don't think my oc would like Doomfist's philosophy. Yes, pressure can lead to adaptation, war has lead to incredible advancements in technology/medicine, but every person should be given a fair chance and a fair fight. My oc believes each species deserves a right to exist without extreme/stressful artificial measures placed onto them--we share this planet, 'playing god' with life that humanity arrogantly deems "lesser" is wrong. Adaptation is not about superiority, adaptation is simply a species fitting a role "good enough" and misconstruing nature's function lends to humanity's tendency for valuing false superiority over the reality that we share this planet together, we do not conquer it. So my oc loathes that conceited view and obsession with superiority, but Talon lends a very useful hand when it comes to taking down certain targets the oc wishes to stop, so he joins up for those missions, and those missions alone. Doomfist thinks little more of the oc than an asset, since he sees him as an omnic with a peculiar motivation, but that omnic certainly creates results. Oc absolutely feels pity for Widow, with Sombra's comments he learned of her real condition. What is worse, to destroy what you hold dear, or to have the capacity to care about it stolen from you?

Moira is a no-no, she uses animal testing and unethical experiments on humans which is entirely barbaric considering the tech the ow world has, and my oc avoids her. Thankfully she doesn't know his human nature, so she doesn't bother with him much, if at all. My oc see's Reaper in the same light as himself, and almost wishes he could connect with a fellow lost soul, but due to having to keep his human half secret, he never connects outright with Gabe, only offering small pieces of advice. Reaper dismisses it all, who needs life lessons from a robot (oof). Still, my oc is less annoying to Reaper than most omnics because at least he's quiet. Ramattra: oooooooo boy this one is a doozy! I originally wanted to make a offshoot omnic oc to ship with Ram bc yehaw Ram is a rizzler and I really like his character (cough cough very similar to Legends General Grievous), but this oc got kind of out of hand LOL so... yeah. Here we are! My oc hides his human side from Ramattra, not in so much that he is worried Ramattra would hurt him/his family, but that Ramattra would not trust him anymore, due to having a 'human weakness' (aka my oc is willing to sacrifice anything for his family, even if it meant going against Null Sector). The two have a peculiar relationship. Since Ramattra doesn't know about my oc's dual nature, he presumes my oc picked up all these human gestures from a pa as a repurposed butler omnic, who denied any semblance of omnic culture. My oc knows little to nothing about omnic culture, which leads to a lot--and I mean A LOT-- of hilarious misunderstandings between two. As stated in my other post, my oc loved traditional Sama-Bajau boat carving, among other sculptural work, and in turn took up pride in his repairs and welding work with his current omnic state. Because of this, my oc sees panels, wires, plates, clean welds, etc. as objects and craftsmanship to be proud of, not inherently intimate parts. Any semblance of personal space is lost on him when repairing omnics since well, he presumes omnics don't have "personal space" when needing repairs. Omnics are efficient right? That must mean they want an efficient repair. The fact he can actually repair parts of Ramattra that Ramattra couldn't otherwise fix without completely replacing, isn't lost on him though. My oc knows it's a unique skill and he uses that to levy agreements in collaborations to target specific polluting/destructive factories/facilities around the world that imprison omnics. Meanwhile, Ramattra is having a near systems reboot when my oc starts casually plugging in and offering to run diagnostics during a repair LOL. Beyond the amusing and sometime jarring momments, Ram is fascinated by my oc's unusual perspectives about things and... unique behavior. It's unlike anything Ramattra has seen in another omnic (he's human Ramattra, of course he 'isn't like the other girls'). Speaking of, since Ram's VA had been notably casted for two prominent MLM roles in the past, I headcanon Ramattra as aro-ace with a preference for masculine or neutral partners. (Ramattra could possibly be demi-romantic, if not aromantic? Idk how the whole "Iris-sentience-wash-over" thing works, because Aurora may have been alloromantic considering some omnics are romantic or open to romantic relationships. I think for now I'll just have an aro-ace partnership preference for Ram regardless.) For canony stuff, it's mostly just like, quips. More one sided than anything lmao. During repairs the Oc is all about roasting humanity as a whole until Ramattra directly makes some one off comment how all humans are (insert negative thing) to his presumed omnic repairman. And... Silence. Oh, the welder didn't like that comment. Alright then. This... is awkward. Maybe he should--Wait, why is he digging around in those wires--by the Iris, does this welder have no shame?!?! GAh--(meanwhile the oc is just speedrunning repairs because he is done with this convo, not realizing he's breaking omnic taboos lmao. Be gentle with those wires man, it's not fun to have sensory functions flicker.)

Anyway, lmao, I think the two get along really well, surprisingly so. Ram is surprised by how warm my oc can be considering my oc is usually stoic and quiet. Once you get to know him though, he has a jovial soul, and a passion for justice. Ramattra finds himself open to understanding more human perspectives though my oc (oc lies, and says it's things he had learned while being around humans before the crisis. In reality it's the oc's own life experiences). Thanks to Ramattra, my oc also finds himself loosing distain and prejudice against omnics/his omnic body due to his whole ordeal with being transferred into an omnic body and then rejected by his human community/family (and ON TOP of that, then rejected by other omnics when they had learned of his human nature). As he spends more time with Ramatra, he finds himself proud to be omnic, he is a part of a unique form of life unlike any other, crafted by organic life itself, and he wishes to use this gift to preserve the planet for future generations of all life, organic or omnic. Ramattra to, finds himself taking into consideration the impact of his actions on the organic life around him. Ramattra thinks that while humans may be organic, humanity had subjugated and abused all other organic life, omnics are just one of many victims to humanity's insufferable grasp.

other tid bits:

Bastion: This is more so aligned with "in game" noncanon lines heroes might share, but my oc would adore that Bastion is caring for Ganymede, who is a part of an endangered species, and wishes Bastion the best. :') If Bastion ever needs vet help, he's your guy.

LifeWeaver: We do be hating Vishkar out here. My oc would be very happy that LifeWeaver broke away and is pursuing ethical actions, along with trying to help conservation of nature. Technically my oc is also wanted by Vishkar, being Vishkar property himself (being a refitted hard light using omnic built and funded by Vishkar, after all).

I also think my oc would have complicated feelings about the animal experiments on Winston and the like. I think my oc would find it unnecessary and cruel, considering most animals in space projects were used for no return missions, or worse simply just tests to see if humans could survive in such conditions. Winston and fellow crew may have not been the ones sent on such missions, but one of their future members certainly would have been.