#i may have shipped them harder if it was yuri tbh..

[dyleeart]

kataang yuri for the soul

[hideousspacebug]

Zim is 100% an adult. This is really shouldn't be up for debate, Jhonen has stated that Zim is older than any living human and Zim has made statements hinting at such in the show itself ("I've been flying ships since before you were born, you sad little Earth Monkey" - quote from NanoZim, literally the third episode of the series).

Jhonen has also made it clear on a few different occasions that Zim is an adult by his species standards, and not just a child of a long lived race like some fans have suggested. In the commentary for Megadoomer he said (I'm paraphrasing) "Zim's rivalry with Dib is sad, because he's basically an old man."

All that having been said, though I do hate ZADR (Zim and Dib Romance) and voted for it as the worst ship, my hatred of it has nothing to do with the age gap.

I'm not an anti and can separate fiction from reality, and there are a lot of age gap ships I DO like in other media. Plus, hating a ship based on one being an Adult and the other being a kid is kinda dumb, when you can just like... Time skip and age the characters up. It's especially dumb in ZaDR's case since it's not like Zim will physically be any older when Dib is an adult. Irkens age slowly so he will look the same. If you would be willing to ship Zim with, say, Membrane on the premise that they are both adults even if Zim is probably hundreds of years old, then theoretically you should have no problem shipping Zim with Dib once the latter ages into an adult.

Instead, my reasons for hating ZaDR are as follows:

1. Personal preference when it comes to genders when shipping. I am straight guy - therefore yaoi has zero appeal to me. I'm only into straight ships and Yuri.

2. I don't like / understanding shipping characters that canonically hate each other. Mind you, I'm not talking about characters that are simply enemies due to ideological reasons, but who's feelings are not as strong as hate, and even flirt or have feelings for each other in canon (ala Batman x Catwoman, or Esdeath loving Tatsumi in Akame ga Kill) I'm talking characters that ACTUALLY hate each other. Zim and Dib may have a few frenemy situations, but they are outnumbered by the moments where Zim legit tries to kill Dib, Dib delights in the idea of Zim being dissected, or go out of their way to screw over or make the other miserable in the most petty of ways.

3. Irkens, as a species, are canonically aroace. They are born from test tubes, and have no genitalia or understanding of sexual desire.

Jhonen has also stated they have no concept of romance. Even friendship seems a foreign concept to them. We can see that in the episode Bestest Friends and Jhonen has stated in a Q&A that (once again, paraphrasing since I don't have the exact quote ready) "the closest thing to camaraderie among Irkens is the mutual understanding of 'I'll try not to accidentally trample you death when rushing to the taco stand since we're supposed to be on the same side'"

I'll admit, I suppose it's not out of the question that individual Irkens could be exception to the aroace part if their brains / paks happen to work differently. Tak, for example, has been theorized to be a defective since she seems more creative and emotionally intelligent than most Irkens, and since she's only in one episode, it's harder to have a full grasp on her character to say for sure she couldn't fall for someone (Tak x Dib is pretty much the only Invader Zim ship I have some fondness for.)

But that really does not seem to be the case for Zim. Though he's shown some degree of complexity, such as a fondness for some of his robot henchmen like GIR and Minimoose, nothing in the show, Netflix special or comics leaves me to believe that those differences go as far as a capacity and desire for romance.

I could maybe see Zim and Dib being friends in some alternate universe if you REALLY stretch Zim's capacity for self reflection (of which he has none in canon) but never lovers

Also, tbh, I don't think my hatred of ZaDR would be so strong if it didn't take up such a huge portion of Invader Zim fanart, fan fiction and fan discussion. Its annoying to shift through the the ZaDR content when searching the Invader Zim tag on Tumblr, deviantart, AO3 and other sites. It just makes my disdain for it even stronger.

Which controversial ship is the best

Explanations under the cut!

Galadriel/Halbrand (Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power) 60 reblogs - 5614 words total.

I didn't read it but it's something about homophobia and racism and misogyny if you like or dislike the ship, i'm not sure which one.

Katara/Aang (Avatar The Last Airbender) 58 comments - 65 reblogs - 796 words.

The arguing actually happened on the Katara/Zuko poll, but it was about this ship. Mostly Zutara shippers complaining about Kataang shippers but i saw maybe 2 kataang shippers in the comments. I repeat: Kataang is on here because it was incredibly controversial on my blog

Laios/Toshiro (Dungeon Meshi) A few comments and reblogs, 228 words out of what I can count + someones 644 word post that was linked to me.

The reason for this is because I jokingly used the tag "shuro has the worst case of allistic disease i've ever seen", because the way he exploded at Laios reminded me of the experiences i've had with allistic people who secretly hate me but never told me. This means I hate asian people and think only white men can be autistic.

Shiro/Keith (Voltron: Legendary Defender) 43 comments

This ship is pseudo-incest and a man grooming a teenager because they met when Keith was an unspecified younger age and Shiro was an unspecified older age. I'm gonna pass away

Zim/Dib (Invader Zim) A few comments and an ask but it stopped quickly

I haven't watched Invader Zim, but I allowed it on the premise that Zim is seen as a child (because I don't like adult/child ships obv). But Zim's age is a big debate.

Yugi Mutou/Yami Yugi (Yu-Gi-Oh) Many reblogs saying the same thing about me

I haven't watched the anime. I saw the same guy twice with the same name and tagged it as "selfcest" incase someone had the tag filtered. This singular tag caused multiple comments and reblogs telling me that it's not selfcest and that it's offensive to DID systems to call it selfcest. I almost snapped here, honestly.

Time to vote! Explode my notes if you want, there's multiple good choices to pick from.

[aerisleis-fics]

Fic Writer Questions

Tagged by @jadekitty777

How many works do you have on AO3?

62 at this time!

What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

454642

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh, well. 11, technically. There are more in the list but they're subsets of the same fandoms. The most common are Final fantasy XV, RWBY, and BNHA.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Burden to Bear

2. Wingbeat of a Butterfly

3. Sins of the Father

4. Pain Shared is Pain Halved

5. Emerald Sunlight.

I'm actually sad that they are ALL BNHA pieces tbh. But it's a BIG fandom and two of those are the longest works I have posted... so... okay. Uhh... 3 tododeku pieces, one Dad for One, and one Toshinko.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I usually do! I like to at least thank people for reading and taking the time to comment, if nothing else.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Uhhh. Probably... probably Alone Inside which was a Beyblade fic that I wrote when I was Young and thought I was Edgy. There's absolutely 0 redeeming qualities in that fic. It's a pure angst fest. I don't recommend going to look at it. I've considered orphaning it but so far... nah. I mean. I wrote it. I did that, disaster tho it may be.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Not really! I do kind of have one or two mentally in the works but I don't do a Lot of crossovers and if I *do* they tend to fit together pretty snugly. I uh. Also don't rly read crossovers so there's that.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Some yes! I don't want to talk about what fics in detail... But, I've gotten hate for using the wrong general terms to refer to people and also for... *checks notes* following my plan for a story that a reader decided was "too much'. That fic remains the one fic I have ever deleted.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Not often! Usually very vanilla if I do write it. I'm very ace and not very confident in my smut, tbh. I do like to get into the intimate before and maybe after where the feelings can be examined sometimes tho so maybe I'll do more of that Eventually.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge here, either!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nothing published. My spouse and I have started to work on and discuss a few together but -splays fingers- we'll see!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Uhhh. O...one? You want me to pick one? I can barely pick one in any specific fandom lmao. Bc like, for ATLA it's Zutara (tho I do also like Toko, bc my partner loves toko and it's fun to write w/ faer). For BNHA its Tododeku (but I also love toshinko). For Yuri on Ice its absolutely Victuuri. But for Beyblade it's Kai/Rei. And for RWBY... ah... RWBY... Probably Hummingbird (but I could write a List of Rwby ships I like and why that's... very long).

So! Like, there's a lot of dynamics and I can't say there's One I like more than anything though like Sunshine child plus Stubborn/Cold/Stunted does seem to... show up a bit.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Uhhhh. If I'm being honest, Probably Razor Thin Line which was Supposed to be an examination of the thin line between heroes and villains in the BNHA verse, but I have... many... BNHA wips and a Lot Less interest in writing for BNHA than I once had, for many reasons. I really wanted to finish it, bc the idea still rly intrigues me, but at this point I'll be happy if I finish... Wingbeat of a Butterfly and the rest of what I want to do for the Burden to Bear verse.

What are your writing strengths?

Um.... hm. See... bc I have such... a love/hate relationship with my works this is hard. But, I've been told that I have generally strong characterization. I also .. usually... like the way I handle descriptions and most dialog. I also like the way I can adjust things and then start to see how the world unfolds around them - but I don't know if I'd call that a strength so much as a writer-default?

What are your writing weaknesses?

It's hard for me to write off of a prompt! I'm slowly getting better at it. Also most of my ideas tend to come in epic length and require... trimming... for short fics or warm ups and drabble-types. I have to try much harder to write shorter types of works and that's something I've been working hard on.

Also just. Fighting scenes. They are the bane of my existence (now laugh bc I write in the fandoms I do. Go ahead. You can laugh. What genius picks up Shonen anime and final fantasy when they struggle with fight scenes)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I mean. It's definitely a thing? I guess I'm not sure what we mean here. Like yes, other characters use other languages sometimes. mentioning that in narration is important? I'm not big on peppering with foreign language words Unless it's deliberately done to kind of point out that the listener doesn't know what was said, either.

As a working example off the top of my head, Viktor from Yuri on Ice dropping a nickname or complement in Russian and Yuuri, not speaking russian, not understanding that particular word said but understanding everything else bc the rest of the statement was literally in english.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

It was either ATLA or Beyblade. Imports from FFN seem to think ATLA. It was a poetry set. Which is funny bc I don't write poems normally.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

This is like asking me to Choose a Favorite Child. And it's very difficult. I have a Real love/hate relationship with most of my works. I'm... going to tentatively say Keep the Home Fires Burning, which is a PolySTQ piece I wrote for the Qrowbang. I love the way this piece came together and I was very proud of how even though it Could have exploded to epic proportions I still got it done within the expected frame. It could have been longer, or deeper, it could have covered more. But I was happy with it, and while those things are all true... I don't think I'd change anything if I rewrote it under similar circumstances.

Tagging: If you see this and want to do it, go for it!

[mars-da-volcanic-elemental]

@a-captions-blog

kataang yuri for the soul