#my largest number of tags

[inkphi]

It's so sad/devestating/embarrassing/lonely/exhausting finding out no one loves you the way you thought they did. It's also clarifying/eye opening/vindicating and motivating.

Mostly I feel embarrassed. I'll tell you why... I tend to feel like I have a happy, sunny, positive disposition. So when on certain days when I have my "real world" and I can see how things and people really are. Some of my more pleasant filters are... "puttering around the kitchen making brownies --just cuz" filter or my "smiling walking thru the pits of HELL, (*AkA*Kensington), complimenting total strangers bc I like to make people smile" filter . I digress, that turned into quite a tangent Which you'll find I do often . Anyway, I really start to self deprocate*, like to the point of, you know how in cartoons when a painting of animals come to life and drop their mouth open, and they whisper to each other "Geez that girl really hates herself. When all that happened is he said something like, I wishyou would have made chicken instead of soup.

I will go into a total tailspin of horrible, mean negative, downright filthy things in a screaming head loop. I mean my brain tells me things you would never sayo someone else much less your own self-talk.

Wow, I need to take a break. I'm going to walk to Chinese Store and buy a few loosies.

I'm making the decision to post a half written blog to motivate me to finish. This is good for both my mental , getting these thoughts straight instead of an angry nest of hornets in ma head . Also, intellectually, bc of the typing and the spelling and thinking , whole thoughts and articulating them in a relatable way. (Which has still yet to be determined)

Day 2:

I came back to finish this but he's honestly, I don't even know wtf I was getting at. I hadn't slept in days.

Basically, I want to feel like I'm part of a team. Team LOVE man! And I will for a few days, then something happens that puts the brakes on that fantasy. Like for instance, tonight I made a comment that I wanted crack, then said damn we don't have any ciggs and told him that his lighter was cold or dying bc the flame was low. This was a span of getting of the el and walking down the steps. He turns and tells me I haven't stopped complaining since we got off the el. From my POV, only comment #2 was a complaint. This was also on top of going to talk to someone who wants him to do a painting for them and I was told to ya know let him talk, which is cool. When we were talking, I was getting excited. I mean I'm happy for him and excited he has a painting to keep him happy and occupied and basically when we walked away he shamed me for getting so animated and excited. Like, you may as well punched me in the gut. That makes my heart hurt. It makes me feel so stupid that I have to defend myself for my personality and that while I'm talking he's in his head mentally telling me to shut up or feeling embarrassed by me.

I'm getting upset and I'm almost home... hopefully I'll finish later

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly i think one of the reasons phirell changed my brain chemistry is that on my first playthrough i started shipping them as soon as he showed up, half out of spite for Oh God Not the Edgy Forced Het Ship Tease and half out of spite for knowing characters like philio are never involved in canon ships, only to get completely poleaxed by him being THE main subtextual love interest while kirell/aam is significantly more ambiguous once you get past balaam's surface-level performance. literally one of the potential last questions on his section of charon's interview--which you only find out is the case on your second playthrough--makes him happy if you say you're fine with just living out your life, and even happier if you say you're open to starting a family. when i tell you i was going insane

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

[cheol-e-kat]

𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞, 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭. 𝐜.𝐬𝐜

𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫

pairing: choi seungcheol x f!reader

summary: y/n’s ex has never fully left her life. but then again how could he when they’re both attorneys at top firms and constantly in opposition.

when they’re finally on the same side, can they let the past go to make a path for the future?

word count (teaser): 700

genre: exes to lovers, rivals, slice of life, attorney au, attorney!seungcheol, attorney!reader, there’s only one bed, idiots in love, *smut

warnings for teaser: none

a/n: lol if you guess my job - anywayyyy, i feel like this is more than the one shot i was imagining, so if you want to be tagged, leave a comment or use my tag list ^^ thanks to everyone for reading, kisses

⋆˙⟡♡ 𝒌𝒂𝒕

master list & tag list

Y/n had known Seungcheol for longer than she liked to admit, and in most instances, he was simply a thorn in her side. She represented people harmed by a company, and he was across the aisle, protecting the company who was completely responsible. 

Even if she was representing a company that had been harmed, their firms were never on the same side, therefore, they were never on the same side. And it didn’t help that they were painfully competitive, even as professionals. They ran against one another for board positions. 

And then there was who could write the most articles in their “spare” time. So far y/n was winning that one with two more publications than Seungcheol. Even if it meant not sleeping - she had more publications next to her name in the alumni publication for the last year. But he was always nipping at her heels. 

But then ‘it’ had happened. 

They had had one case where their firms were on the same side, meaning they were both stuck in some shit hole jurisdiction for weeks on end, with very little to distract them. Not to mention that they were both in the same hotel, which wasn’t shocking given there were two hotels in the whole place and they were booked out with attorneys, journalists, and experts. 

The ‘it’, though, was Seungcheol somehow ending up without a hotel room. Which, if what y/n had happened to hear in the elevator was true, there was some asshole at seungcheol’s firm who was looking to make his life miserable. 

Y/n didn’t love that - ruining Seungcheol’s life was her job. 

She still had his number from when they had first met in college, when they might have been something - she texted him.

[Y/n]

Need a room?

She had waited for him to ask who was texting. She assumed he had deleted her number.

[Cheollie]

How do you know about that?

She rolled her eyes.

[Y/n]

Is that really the important thing?

[Cheollie]

You magically have a room?

[Y/n]

It’s an offer to share but I would suggest you don’t bunk with whatever his name is - the blonde with horrifying bowties - he might actually hate you

She had watched dots - and dots - and then they died away.

[Cheollie]

What room?

જ⁀➴

She had opened the door when he knocked. He looked just exhausted enough to have accepted without too much pressure, which she thought was maybe actually good for him since he, realistically, had no other choice.

She had let him in, glad that she had sprung for the largest room she could. It meant there was a bed and a small sofa, which she imagined Seungcheol could fit on, admittedly, with problems, but that wasn’t her concern.

“Bad flight?” she asked.

He flopped on the tiny sofa, “Fucking shit flight and a four hour layover with no restaurants,” he grumbled. 

“Sorry,” she patted his head as she went to get ready for bed in the bathroom. 

When she came out, she noticed that he was already asleep and looking especially too large for the sofa he had taken without even asking her.

She felt a little bad, but not enough to wake him up. His flight sounded awful - why not let him sleep, she thought to herself. 

She sat up, looking through some files, until she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She decided it was time for bed, which was just in time for Seungcheol to roll off the tiny sofa, landing with a soft thunk. 

She couldn’t help the snort that escaped her. She watched him sit up, eyes barely open, and his rumpled hair. ‘Cute,’ that was what she immediately thought - how cute he looked. It was the one consistent thing she always felt about him - he was unquestionably cute.  

“Seungcheol,” she saw him glance at her, “just come here.” She patted the empty half of the bed next to her. 

She knew she didn’t sound the appropriate level of exasperated, but she didn’t really care. It wouldn’t be the first time they had shared a bed. 

She was glad that he didn’t argue - he just flopped in the bed the way she remembered. But when she woke up to realize their limbs were tangled and his arm was around her waist, she stared into space, trying to decide if she would elbow him or not. But her thoughts were interrupted. 

“Y/n,” his voice was so soft and close. 

She didn’t move - she wasn’t sure what would happen next. But he just moved closer, his breath warm at the nape of her neck.

“Missed you,” he mumbled.

a/n: i actually started this fic like a month ago, and idk the new hugo boss photo is way too perfect for this banner skskss he’s such a mood

⋆˙⟡♡ 𝒌𝒂𝒕

♡ my [master list] if you want to read more

♡ if you want to be tagged in my posts, go [here] - if you want to be tagged in this fic you can leave a comment or the tag list form

𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐥 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐞 ^^

angst - [ a ] || fluff - [ f ] || smut - [ s ]

teasers: all but break your heart |୨୧| tonight tonight

drabbles: co-worker & spanking [ s ] |୨୧| gamer boy [ s ] |୨୧| professor one [ s ] | valentine's day [ f ] #kat_drabbles

fluff: profound, not sudden [ f ]

smut: see bingo series above and random slutty thoughts collection

series: obvious affection [ pt. 1 f ] [ pt. 2 f & s ] |୨୧| 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒖𝒑 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 [ pt. 1 s ] [ pt. 2 s ] |୨୧| 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒇. 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒊 [ pt. 1 s ] [ pt. 2 s ] |୨୧| 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 [ pt. 1 s ] [ pt. 2 f & s ] [ pt. 3 f & s ]

seungcheol bingo [warning all smut]: knotting + marking | professor (prof. choi, pt. 1) | monster | spanking (neighbor seungcheol) | big dick + hate sex | forced masturbastion (prof. choi, pt ii) | voyeurism + punishment | coffee shop au + forbidden relationship (never let you go pt. 1) | bodyguard + drunk confession | anon sex + hair pulling + mask wearing | big dick!cheol + hate sex (choose your own adventure) | sexual frustration + ex sex |

omegaverse (a/b/o): alpha seungcheol [pt. 1 s] [pt. 2 s] || never let you go [master list] [part 1 f & s] [part 2 f ] ||

[ taglist ]

☁︎ @syluslittlecrows [e] ☁︎ @gyuguys [e] ☁︎ @tinyelfperson [e] ☁︎ @unlikelysublimekryptonite [e] ☁︎ @livelaughloveseventeen [e] ☁︎ @codeinebelle [e] ☁︎ @ateez-atiny380 [e] ☁︎ @mingcouper [e] ☁︎ @hanniebub [e] ☁︎ @perfectiondazesworld [e] ☁︎ @scoupshawty [e] ☁︎ @peachytokki [e] ☁︎ @coupsbestleader [e] ☁︎ @fleurloovin [e] ☁︎ @babybae-shisui [e] ☁︎ @asyre [e] ☁︎ @dcrlingyou [e] ☁︎ @yeosayang [e] ☁︎ @nanabananananabatman ☁︎

☁︎ @haik-chu [e - one/multi] ☁︎ @gigglensnort [e - one/multi/priv] ☁︎ @thepoopdokyeomtouched [e - multi/priv] ☁︎

☁︎ @liaaya-17 [c.sc - multi] ☁︎

[chanaleah]

Hello, I'd like to ask a question in good faith about israel/Oct 7

I have seen many Jewish folk and israelis say that Oct 7 was the largest Massacre since the holocaust but from my understanding a significantly larger number of Jewish folk were killed and disappeared during the dirty war in Argentina in the 70s and 80s so I was just wondering I guess about why the dirty war doesn't seem as important as Oct 7 or why barely anyone talks about the dirty war because both events are horrific but I only ever see Oct 7 discussed when it comes to more modern Jewish oppression and history

this is a really interesting question, but I'd actually never heard of the dirty war in Argentina up until this point, so I don't I have the knowledge to answer you.

After some quick reading it seems it might be due to the fact that the dirty war seems to have occured over a long span of time, while October 7th was just one day, but that's just my conclusion after some very surface level research.

I'll tag some people who might be able to answer this better than I can.

@historicity-was-already-taken @homochadensistm @native-n-jewish-thoughts @aqlstar @gay-jewish-bucky @newnitz @spale-vosver @magnetothemagnificent

[chaosvanquished]

We had a few lists of widely known games but I decided we needed one more.

I created this list by compiling a mixture of games that ranked highest in tumblr's tags, had a large number of works on ao3, or were popping up a lot on my dashboard because tumblr went into a short frenzy over them. I also threw in a few games that gave us tumblr-favorite memes or laid the groundwork for a lot of art and gooning. Plus a little extra treat.

It's not perfect but there should be something in here for everyone from classic shooter enthusiasts to gacha professionals, art enjoyers, visual novel readers, and furries.

Please read the following before voting:

Some entries say "XY series" and some only "XY". Not every series had a specific tag I could choose (ie. there was no Honkai series so I had to select Honkai: Star Rail) from the menu. Just know that I meant the whole series and not the exact game listed. Castlevania means all Castlevania games, Red Dead Redemption includes RDR2 and so.

You may select a series if you played any installment in the series, your call.

[deldaydreams]

Mafia Au/Good luck while running away from mafia part 4

Intro, part 0.5 , part 1 , part 2 , part 3 , part 5 , part 6

Tags: @hrhqueenfox , @hasty-desert , @oceanside-pixie , @lianreine , @h3apm3ch4n151m , @cecilebutcher , @ayachansan , @roseapov , @randomlyappearingartist , @serenity-loves-red , @wonderlandcrown , @nightw-izhu , @moonlight-nightwing , @lorkai , @lucid-stories , @morokumi

Notes: little bit rushed I guess? Well I am working on three other aus at the moment so. I hope you like it.

Warning: yandere stuff, gn reader, English is not my first language…

4 years ago

“Tyranttt!” You moaned.

“I haven't eaten a bite or drank a sip of water for hours. Now you're giving me an exam! “This is not a test, it is torture!” You shouted to the cameras on the wall.

As usual, you were training with Crewel sensei all day long. And it couldn't be said that he was a very kind teacher. He was extra harsh on you, especially compared to the other people he trained.

However, he had especially gotten things out of hand. Today was one of your least favorite days. Surprise exam day. Surprise exams: as the name suggests, you would never know the content and time of the exam. Crewel would put you to the test suddenly, without you even noticing. You especially hated the hands-on ones.

You couldn't eat properly yesterday. You had been training under Crewel Sensei all day. When you returned home, you fell asleep straight away from exhaustion. When you woke up, you found yourself handcuffed in a room. While I was sleepily trying to comprehend what was happening, Crewel Sensei's voice echoed into the room from the ceiling speaker.

“My dear little puppy, guess what time? Correct answer: Surprise exam! Your mission is to get out of the handcuffs and get out of this building within two hours. Let me tell you from the beginning, do not complain, the exam was prepared according to the topics we covered. Then I wish you good luck. Your time has begun.”

-

“Two hours and 6 minutes nch nch. You need to work harder. 8 minutes to get out of the handcuffs, 43 minutes to open all the locked doors, 40 minutes to pass the obstacles... we better tighten up your training."

You just glared at Divus as he seriously analyzed the exam. You're too hungry to bother with that damn practical exam. You just focused on eating your salad.

“I mean, what was slowing you down? Should we increase the number of exams?

“Sensei, it’s just six minutes, I was tired, unprepared-“

“The aim is to prepare you for all kinds of situations.” Crewel interrupted.You grimaced. You weren't in the mood to argue with him right now.

While Crewel was talking about your mistakes, there was a knock on the door. It was Sam.

“Sam-san!” Your eyes sparkled with joy at the sight of your savior. Whenever Crewel scolded you or increased your training hours, he would save you from Crewel like a savior angel.

“Excuse me to interrupt, but Boss wants the little imp.” said Sam.

“Huh, now? Why does he want Y/n?” Crewel asked with a grimace.

"Who knows. By the way, get it while you're at it.I brought the information you requested.”

He handed Crewel a package. Meanwhile, you escaped at the first opportunity you had and went to Crowley, the head of the mafia.

-

“Looks like Crewel gave you one of his wonderful exams again, hmm?” The masked man asked, as he poured a tea for you.

"Yes sir."

Dire Crowley is the head of one of the largest organizations in the Underworld and also your protector who took you in when you were ten years old. You had always wondered how such a goofy and slightly weird guy became the head of the mafia.

Once, when you asked Crewel sensei about this, he told you these words.“If you only knew what that man did… Anyway, just be careful with him. He is…the devil himself.”

“You've been with me for a long time, Y/n, and the time has finally come.”He handed you a file.

“Congratulations, you are now an official member of the mafia and here is your first target.”

You started examining the file.

“This man was a traitor we had been looking for a long time. He poses a great danger to the organization. I want you to get rid of him.”

———

Current time

You were on something soft. You opened your eyes slowly. You felt a pain in your shoulder.

“Jamil! Y/n woke up!”

You heard a joyful familiar voice. The owner of the voice hugged you with joy. Kalim. You tried to comprehend the events in a dazed manner.

That's right, Floyd shot you last and you fainted from blood loss while running with all your strength. And apparently Scarabia had caught you.

“Oh Y/n you really had me worried. If you only knew how scared I was when I saw you like that, shot and unconscious."

You didn't reply. You just stared blankly at Kalim.

“Yes Y/n you had us all so worried.” Jamil entered the room. He had a black agenda in his hand and was wearing a suit. Now if you look carefully, Kalim was also wearing a suit. The welds of weight on his wrists jingled as he turned to survey the room. Oh you were chained.

“Is it allowed to keep such things in the hotel room?” You said.

“Oh, I'm sorry, we brought the silver ones with us because we came here in a hurry, but don't worry, we have gold ones at home.” said Kalim innocently.

You loved Kalim, his sweet and pure nature prevented you from venting your anger on him. You gritted your teeth. You looked at Jamil.

“Kalim, you better go now, you need to greet our guests for the meeting. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes." Jamil dragged the manager out by force.

“But Jamil-“

“Don't worry, nothing will happen. They are both injured and the whole hotel is full of guards.”

After Kalim left, a grin appeared on Jamil's face that you had never seen before. A familiar and yet disturbing grin.

“Congratulations, you are truly someone who lives up to the title of the boss's right-hand man. Sorry, his former right-hand man. You know Kalim was so panicked it was hard for me to calm him down. Especially when you suddenly disappeared he stopped working, coming to meetings…You owe me for this.”

You didn’t answer. You knew he was trying to provoke you.

“I wonder what would have happened if those documents had never arrived? Would the boss throw you aside? Would you be his heir after all the training you received?”

You tried to hold yourself back.

"Who knows." You replied.

A burst of laughter broke out from Jamil. He approached you.

“Oh, you are really tough. It's not easy to break you, but don't worry, we have plenty of time. The doctor will be coming soon to change your bandages, so don't be a hassle. I notified room service for you to have breakfast.”

And he left the room.

You laughed. Oh apparently Crewel Sensei was right. Training would really come in handy.

-

Once you were free of the chains, you got into the bed and waited for the doctor.Indeed, as Jamil said, the doctor came about fifteen minutes later.You quietly waited for him to approach you on your bed.

“Excuse me, Y/n-san are you awake?”

You didn't reply. Just as the doctor was bending over to lift the blanket on you, you jumped on top of them and gagged them with one of the sheets before they could scream. You undressed the poor doctor while they were struggling in chains made for you.

“I'm sorry, but you know I have to run away. And my clothes are a little off for that.”

You were careful not to attract the suspicion of the guards as you left the room dressed as a doctor. You started walking away from there with normal steps.

Indeed, as Jamil said, there was protection everywhere. As you were about to get into the elevator, you noticed the guards talking on the phone, then they all hurriedly dispersed. Apparently room service had found the poor doctor.

You changed direction. You walked calmly but quickly and pulled the fire alarm. And as you wish, chaos broke out.

While people were screaming and running in panic, you mixed in with them. And you finally reached the exit.

When you left the hotel, you hailed a taxi with the money you got from the poor doctor.

“To the amusement park,” you said to the driver.

Then you called that number with the phone you got from the doctor.

“Hey it's me Y/n. It's time to pay me back. Be at the amusement park. Don't forget to bring a vehicle and weapon with you. You better be on time, Snow White."

-

“Looks like your training has paid off, Crewel.”The masked man said in a sarcastic tone.

“It's truly incredible, but it's a shame that such a person is a traitor.” said Trein as he caressed Lucius.

“Well, talent is in their blood, after all, he was like that too when he was young.” said Vargas.

“I have work to do. With your permission,” Crewel stood up sharply.

“Oh Crewel, don't be angry-“ but before Crowley could finish his sentence, Crewel spoke angrily.

“You hate it the most when we talk about him. Didn't you declare him a traitor to take over, and completely erased Ramshackle from the mafia? And now you're sacrificing them for your executives."

Crowley smiled under his mask.

“Crewel Crewel, are you really going to play innocent? You were the one who gave them those documents. If they didn't know anything, maybe we would still be living in peace. But no problem. After this game, we will return to our peaceful life again."

[novaursa]

Legacy (the silence)

- Summary: Tywin was the man who saved you from Robert's wrath. He was also the man who doomed you.

- Pairing: targ!reader/Tywin Lannister

- Note: Be awear of unspecified time jump.

- Rating: Explicit 18+ (slight descritpion of blood and gore)

- Previous part: across the dream

- Next part: the great war

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @oxymakestheworldgoround @luniaxi @alkadri-layal @butterflygxril @urdxrling

The wind howled through the towering cliffs of Casterly Rock, carrying with it the scent of salt and cold steel. Beneath the shadow of the great castle, the courtyard and the surrounding paths swarmed with men and banners, a sea of red and gold. The banners of the Westerlands stretched as far as the eye could see—familiar sigils of lesser houses loyal to the Lion of Lannister. The old roads, once worn by merchants and travelers, now thundered beneath the hooves of warhorses and the heavy tread of marching feet.

Tywin Lannister stood at the edge of the outer parapet, his gloved hands resting on the stone, his gaze sweeping over the columns of armed men pouring through the open gates. The force that had assembled was vast, perhaps the largest host the Westerlands had called upon in a generation, yet it was not as grand as it could have been in an age untouched by war and winter. Supplies were dwindling, and no matter how well-prepared he had been, no one had foreseen more then three years of endless night.

Kevan stood beside him, his face lined with quiet contemplation. “More arrive by the hour,” he said, his voice barely audible over the clamoring of men below. “Ser Myles Lefford rides at the head of the last host from the Golden Tooth, and the remaining forces from Deep Den and the Crag should be here soon.” He exhaled, his breath fogging in the cold air. “This is the last of them, Tywin. Every sword sworn to us has come.”

Tywin’s expression did not shift, but his grip on the stone tightened slightly.

“These are all who could make it,” he corrected.

Kevan nodded grimly. They both knew there were men still trapped in smaller holdfasts, cut off by the unnatural storms that had ravaged the roads. Others had never made it at all, swallowed by the darkness or the creatures that now roamed freely in the deep woods. The Westerlands had always been a strong, untamed land, but it had never known fear like this.

Below, the banners of House Brax, House Marbrand, House Kenning, and more fluttered in the frozen wind as their lords dismounted and gave orders to their men. A chorus of shouting, the clank of armor, and the snorting of warhorses filled the air, but there was no raucous celebration. No laughter. No boasting. Only the solemn grimness of men who had come to fight their last war.

Ser Addam Marbrand approached on foot, his orange cloak dusted with frost. He dipped his head in a respectful bow to Tywin. “My lord, my men have settled within the lower halls as ordered. The horses are being stabled, and we brought as many provisions as we could carry. We left none behind.” He hesitated for a moment, his dark eyes flickering with something unspoken. “Some of my men say they saw shapes in the woods as we rode. Pale figures in the trees, watching but not attacking. We rode hard to outpace them.”

Kevan shifted uncomfortably. “How many?”

Marbrand shook his head. “Too many to count.”

Tywin’s jaw tightened, but his voice remained steady. “It was wise not to engage. Whatever numbers they bring, they will break against these walls.” His gaze remained fixed on the sea of arriving soldiers, his mind already turning over every possible strategy.

He had spent his life making war against men—rebels, usurpers, fools who thought they could defy the might of House Lannister. He had crushed them all. But this was no war of banners and crowns. This was something older, something no man had ever conquered.

And yet, he would not bow.

Kevan exhaled. “Winterfell sends no word back with messengers. Neither does the capital.”

“That is not an accident.” Tywin’s voice was cold. “Someone ensures the realm remains deaf to what is happening.”

Marbrand frowned. “Could it be Daenerys?”

Tywin shook his head. “No. She lacks the subtlety.” He turned, his cloak billowing behind him. “Whoever is doing this, it is not to her benefit either.”

Kevan hesitated. “Then who?”

Tywin did not answer. He had spent the last weeks pondering the same question, and yet no answer presented itself that did not lead to a darker conclusion.

Silence fell between them, broken only by the arrival of another rider. Ser Myles Lefford, his golden breastplate dulled with frost, dismounted stiffly and strode toward them.

“My lords,” he said, bowing, “we met no resistance on the road, but there are whispers among the men. They speak of villages where the fires still burned, but not a single soul remained. No bodies, no signs of struggle. Only silence.”

Tywin turned fully to face him. “How many villages?”

Lefford’s throat bobbed. “Too many.”

Kevan muttered a curse, running a hand through his beard. “This is beyond raiding. They are wiping the land clean.”

Marbrand nodded grimly. “If they mean to starve us, they have already begun.”

Tywin stared at the growing mass of soldiers in the courtyard below. This was the last host the West would ever raise, the final force that stood between annihilation and survival. If they failed here, there would be no retreat, no second war.

He turned back to his gathered men.

“We will not cower behind these walls like frightened children,” he said, his voice cutting through the cold. “We have prepared for this. The Rock has stood for thousands of years and will stand long after we are dust. These things may bring the cold, but I will see them burn.”

Marbrand and Lefford bowed. “As you command, my lord.”

Kevan looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

Tywin cast one last glance at the forces still arriving.

Let them come.

He would make sure they paid in blood.

The war room was dimly lit, the air thick with the scent of wax and parchment, the heavy weight of impending doom pressing against the stone walls like an unseen specter. A great table stretched the length of the chamber, covered in a detailed map of Westeros, marked with carved sigils of their bannermen and the crude placements of their enemies. The Westerlands had gathered for their final stand, and all eyes now turned toward Tywin Lannister, the Lion of Casterly Rock, as he weighed their fates with the cold precision that had won him every war he had ever fought.

But this was no war of men.

The door creaked open, and the lords who sat around the table turned as you entered. You moved with the quiet grace that had been bred into you since birth, but there was something else in you now—something sharpened by years of survival, war, and the burden of knowledge you alone carried. As you stepped into the chamber, the gathered bannermen rose, offering you the respect due to both the Lady of Casterly Rock and a woman who rode a dragon.

Tywin looked up from the map, his expression unreadable as he gestured to the seat beside him. You took it without hesitation, feeling the weight of a dozen gazes settle on you. Kevan Lannister sat across from you, his brows furrowed, his hands folded over one another. Ser Addam Marbrand stood near the hearth, his face cast in flickering firelight, his fingers drumming idly against the pommel of his sword. Lord Lefford, Lord Brax, and the other lords of the West sat in quiet anticipation, waiting for the war council to begin.

It was Kevan who spoke first. “The last of our men have arrived. Every sword sworn to us is now within these walls. If we are to strike before the enemy reaches us, the time is now.”

Tywin gave a small, imperceptible nod. “And have they sent word from the capital? Anything or still nothing?”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

“No, my lord,” Lord Brax finally admitted, his voice grim. “No word from the Crownlands, nor from the North.”

You shifted, your fingers pressing against the edge of the table. “Then it is as we feared—someone ensures silence reigns across the realm. We are being cut off from the world.”

Ser Addam Marbrand exhaled through his nose. “We cannot afford to wait any longer, my lord. If the North is lost, the Others will march south unchallenged.”

Tywin’s gaze darkened, but he said nothing.

You leaned forward, your voice steady. “Then let me take Viserion and burn them before they reach us.”

The lords stirred at your words, some exchanging glances, others nodding in silent agreement.

Lord Lefford spoke up, his face lined with weariness. “She speaks sense, my lord. We do not know how many of them there are, nor how they fight, but if fire is truly their weakness, then we must use it before it is too late.”

Kevan hesitated. “We know fire can kill the wights. But we do not know if it can kill the Others. If they are truly creatures of ice, then perhaps dragonflame can undo them—but if not…” He trailed off, unwilling to speak the worst of it.

You turned to Tywin, watching as his jaw tightened, as the muscle in his cheek twitched ever so slightly. He was silent, thoughtful, but there was something else in his eyes. Hesitation.

It was rare to see Tywin Lannister unsure.

You softened your voice. “We cannot wait until they are at our gates, Tywin. The Rock may be impenetrable, but it is not invincible. If we allow them to gather, to grow stronger, then even these walls may not hold.”

Tywin exhaled slowly, but he still did not answer.

Kevan shifted in his seat. “She is right, brother. If we wait, we may find ourselves cornered, besieged by an enemy we do not fully understand.”

Ser Addam Marbrand, ever the strategist, leaned forward. “If we send her to test them now, we will know what we face before it is too late. We must learn if dragonfire can truly undo them. If it does not, then at least we will know the limits of our weapons before we make our stand.”

The lords murmured in agreement, their voices a mixture of conviction and unease.

But still, Tywin hesitated.

You reached for his hand beneath the table, pressing your fingers against his palm. It was a rare gesture, one done in the quiet privacy of your chambers, never in the presence of others. But now, with all of Westeros on the brink of destruction, you did not care for propriety.

He glanced at you then, his green eyes locking onto yours, searching.

You did not need to speak the words aloud. You must trust me.

For a long moment, the world around you ceased to exist. The lords, the war, the Rock—it all faded into silence.

Then, finally, Tywin spoke.

“You may go,” he said, his voice low, measured. “But you will not go alone.”

You arched a brow. “Who do you mean to send with me?”

Tywin turned to Kevan. “You will take a small force to accompany her. A dozen riders. No more.”

Kevan’s brows furrowed. “If she is flying, then there is no need for riders.”

Tywin’s gaze did not waver. “There is always a need for an escape plan.”

Your lips parted, but you did not argue. You could see it now—the barely concealed fear in his expression, the tightness in his shoulders. He was not a man who bent to fear. But this? This was different.

This was you.

And for the first time in all your years together, you realized what it meant for the lion to love a dragon.

Tywin turned to the room, his voice cold and commanding once more. “We move before the week is done. If this war is to be fought, we shall be the ones to strike first.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the lords.

You gave Tywin’s hand one last squeeze before releasing it, rising from your seat.

As you turned to leave, you felt his gaze linger on your back, a silent weight that followed you as you exited the war room.

And you knew, without a shadow of doubt, that if you did not return—there would be no force in this world that could stop Tywin Lannister from razing it to the ground.

The air smelled faintly of parchment and herbs, a mixture of the maester’s study and the lingering scent of medicinal balms. You sat on the cushioned bench beside the table, your hands resting on your lap, fingers idly tracing the embroidery on your sleeve. Across from you, Maester Aldren finished his examination, his expression grave yet unreadable as he straightened and exhaled softly.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then, with a measured tone, he spoke.

“You are with child.”

The words settled heavily between you, like the final grains of sand slipping through an hourglass.

Your breath caught in your throat. It was not unexpected—not entirely. You had felt the changes within you in the past few weeks: the subtle exhaustion, the way your body had begun to shift in ways you recognized from before. But to hear it spoken aloud, to have it confirmed in this moment—now, on the eve of your departure—was something else entirely.

Maester Aldren continued, unaware of the tempest brewing in your mind. “You are early along. No more than a few moons, but there is no mistake. Your body has already begun adjusting.”

Your gaze flickered down to your hands, to the pale skin of your fingers, as thoughts warred within you. Another child. Tywin’s child.

The timing could not have been worse.

A deep inhale steadied you. When you spoke, your voice was firm. “You will not tell anyone.”

Aldren’s brows furrowed, his weathered face etched with confusion. “My lady, surely the Lord of the Rock should—”

“No,” you interrupted, your voice unwavering. “Not yet.”

Aldren hesitated. He was a maester of the Citadel, sworn to duty and knowledge, but he was also a man who had served your household for years. He had tended to Damon and Maelor since their birth, and he had been at your side through battles and winters alike. But now, he looked at you with uncertainty, as if weighing whether to challenge you.

Carefully, he folded his hands before him. “May I ask why?”

You exhaled, standing slowly, smoothing the fabric of your cloak. “Because if I tell him, he will not let me leave.”

Aldren’s expression darkened. “And is that not a good thing?”

Your eyes snapped to him, a silent storm swirling in their depths. “No,” you said quietly. “Because if I do not leave, we may all perish.”

Silence stretched between you.

Aldren sighed, rubbing his temple. “You ride into battle, my lady. With a child inside you.”

Your lips pressed into a thin line. “I ride to ensure there is a future for my children—all of them.”

Aldren inhaled sharply, then released it in resignation. He knew you well enough to understand that your mind was made up, that no amount of reasoning or pleading would sway you.

“You must take care,” he murmured at last. “You must not overstrain yourself. And if you feel anything—anything—unusual, you will return at once.”

“I will,” you lied.

Aldren studied you, his gaze keen with scrutiny, but in the end, he nodded. He would not betray your trust, not now.

“I will do as you ask, my lady,” he said solemnly. “But this secret cannot be kept for long. You must tell Lord Tywin when you return.”

“When I return,” you echoed softly, as if speaking it into certainty.

But deep in your heart, you knew—if you did not return, it would not matter at all.

The cold air bit against your skin as you stepped into the courtyard of Casterly Rock, the darkened sky stretching endlessly above like an abyss without stars. The torches lining the perimeter of the fortress flickered wildly in the wind, their flames struggling against the unnatural night that had swallowed the world whole. The scent of damp stone, of leather and steel, mixed with the distinct sulfurous tang that always lingered when dragons were near.

Viserion emerged from the depths of the mines, her golden-hued scales gleaming even in the absence of true sunlight. Her wings stretched wide, sending gusts of wind through the courtyard as she let out a guttural rumble, sensing the purpose in the air. Her saddle, already secured, awaited you, the thick leather straps taut and ready for flight.

From the darkness of the mines, another presence loomed—Arraxes.

The young dragon lingered just beyond the threshold, his blood-red eyes cutting through the shadows like embers buried in ash. His serpentine form slithered closer, his nostrils flaring as he released a low, uneasy growl. It was not rebellion, nor was it defiance—it was hesitation. He felt the pull, the bond between himself and Viserion, his mother, his guiding flame. And yet, something deep within him warred against instinct.

Your heart clenched as you watched him, your gaze locking onto his unreadable, primal stare. You felt his longing, his indecision, the silent question lingering in his mind—why could he not follow? Why was he being left behind?

But after a long, agonizing moment, the young dragon released a huff and stepped back, retreating into the shadows of the mines. His glowing eyes were the last thing to vanish into the black.

The decision was made.

A gust of wind from Viserion’s wings snapped you from your thoughts, and you turned your attention back to the present. Your riders—loyal men who had trained tirelessly for this mission—stood at the ready, their steeds shifting restlessly beneath them. Their armor gleamed faintly under the torchlight, their eyes filled with a mix of apprehension and resolve.

And then, there was Tywin.

He stood apart from the others, his piercing green eyes fixed upon you with a gaze that burned deeper than any flame Viserion could conjure. He was clad in his riding leathers, his heavy fur-lined cloak draped over his shoulders, but there was no mistaking the tension in his stance. He had known this moment was coming, but that did not make it easier.

You approached him slowly, the sound of your boots against the stone drowned out by the howling wind. You could see the tightness in his jaw, the way his fingers curled into fists at his sides as if resisting the urge to reach for you and keep you here.

"You will return," he said, his voice low, edged with steel. It was not a question. It was a command.

You exhaled softly, allowing a small, knowing smile to grace your lips. "Of course."

Tywin narrowed his eyes, his gaze searching yours, as if trying to find any trace of deception. "You will return," he repeated, this time quieter. "Do not make a liar of yourself, wife."

A flicker of warmth spread through you at the possessiveness in his words, but it was overshadowed by the weight of what lay ahead. You wanted to promise him everything, but promises were fragile things in times like these.

Your hand reached for his, fingers curling around his wrist, feeling the steady pulse beneath his skin. "I will be back before you know it," you murmured. "And when I return, you will scold me for being reckless, and I will laugh and say you worry too much."

Tywin exhaled sharply through his nose, his expression unreadable. "Yes," he muttered. "I expect I shall."

There was nothing more to say.

You turned, your fingers lingering against his for a moment longer before stepping away. The weight of his gaze followed you as you approached Viserion, each step measured, deliberate. The she-dragon lowered herself slightly, allowing you to climb into the saddle with practiced ease. The moment your hands grasped the reins, she shifted, restless, eager to take to the skies.

Your riders fell into position, their own mounts ready for the long flight ahead.

With one last glance at Tywin, you nodded once.

And then, with a powerful thrust of her wings, Viserion launched into the air, the ground falling away beneath you. The wind roared past your ears as the great she-dragon carried you higher and higher, her wings cutting through the endless night.

Below, the torches of Casterly Rock flickered like distant stars.

And Tywin watched, unmoving, until you were out of sight.

The deep black of the night pressed heavily against the walls of Casterly Rock, the vast stone fortress eerily silent save for the occasional crackling of the torches lining its halls. Outside, the wind howled against the cliffs, a distant, mournful sound that seemed to stretch endlessly into the void of the frozen world.

Maelor stirred in his bed, a small frown creasing his young face as a voice—her voice—whispered to him from the darkness.

"Maelor… Maelor, sweet boy, wake up."

His eyelids fluttered open, the voice wrapping around him like a gentle lullaby. It was familiar, impossibly so. His mother. But that was impossible. She had flown away with Viserion days ago, her absence leaving a hollowness in the castle that even the warmth of the dragonfires beneath the Rock could not chase away.

Yet, the voice persisted.

"Come to me, little lion. I'm waiting."

Compelled by something unseen, Maelor sat up, his small hands clutching at the heavy furs draped over him. The room was dimly lit by the embers still glowing in the hearth, casting flickering shadows along the stone walls. Damon slept soundly beside him, his breathing steady despite the scars that marred his once-unblemished skin.

Maelor hesitated for only a moment before slipping out of bed, his bare feet padding softly against the cold floor. He did not think to wake his brother, nor did he question why his mother was calling for him when he knew she was far away. Some part of him—the part that longed for her warmth, her presence, the safety of her embrace—urged him forward.

The door creaked as he pulled it open, and the dimly lit corridors of the Rock stretched before him like the gaping maw of a beast. The flickering torches barely pushed back the shadows, but the voice guided him, soft and insistent.

"This way, my love… just a little further…"

Maelor wandered deeper into the darkened halls, his small frame swallowed by the vastness of the corridors. The deeper he walked, the colder the air became. The warmth of the Rock, the heat of the dragons below, did not reach these parts. The torches burned lower, their flames barely more than dying embers.

And then, he saw it.

A figure stood at the end of the hall, its form barely visible through the gloom.

At first, Maelor thought it was his mother—but it wasn’t.

It was too tall. Too thin. Its body was an unnatural shade of pale, almost translucent in the dim light. And its eyes—icy blue, glowing like lanterns in the dark bored into him with unnatural hunger.

It smiled, revealing jagged, needle-sharp teeth that glistened as if coated in frost.

Maelor felt his body go stiff, his breath hitching in his throat. A scream clawed at his chest, but his lips would not part. He could not move.

The creature lifted a long, skeletal hand and beckoned him forward.

"Come, little one. Your mother is waiting."

Maelor's feet shuffled forward against his will. He did not want to move, but something was pulling him.

The closer he got, the colder the air became. Frost coated the walls, forming intricate spirals that pulsed as if alive. His vision blurred, the world narrowing to the wraith-like figure before him. The blue light in its eyes expanded, swallowing his thoughts whole.

"Maelor!"

The spell shattered as a roaring explosion of fire illuminated the corridor.

The creature shrieked as a blade, engulfed in white-hot flames, slashed through the darkness.

Beric Dondarrion and his men rushed into the corridor, their weapons drawn, their torches alight. The glow of Beric’s sword cast long shadows along the walls, the flames flickering with unnatural intensity.

"GET BACK!" Beric bellowed as he slashed at the creature again, his blade carving a molten arc through the air.

The wraith recoiled, its shriek sharp and piercing, like ice cracking beneath unbearable weight. The blue light in its eyes flickered violently, its form twisting and shifting as if struggling to maintain its presence.

Maelor collapsed to the ground, his body released from its invisible hold. He gasped, his breath forming white clouds in the freezing air.

Damon skidded into the corridor just as Thoros of Myr lifted his hands, his voice booming with a prayer to the Lord of Light.

"R'hllor, great god of flame, cast out this darkness!"

A pillar of fire erupted from the torches, roaring down the corridor and engulfing the creature in a cascade of golden flames.

The wraith let out a piercing scream, its body contorting in agony as the fire consumed it. The glow in its eyes flickered once—twice—and then was gone.

The creature collapsed into ash.

For a moment, the only sound was Maelor’s ragged breathing as he stared at the spot where the thing had stood. His tiny hands trembled, his eyes wide with lingering terror.

Beric rushed to the boy, kneeling before him. "Are you hurt?"

Maelor shook his head, his lips trembling. Damon, pale-faced and breathless, hurried to his brother’s side, grasping his arm. "What were you thinking?" he demanded. "You—You just left—"

Before Maelor could answer, alarm bells rang out through the Rock.

Beric shot to his feet, his eyes snapping toward the direction of the castle walls.

Thoros wiped sweat from his brow, his expression grim. "That was just one," he murmured. "And it got inside."

Beric turned to the nearest guard. "Ring the bells louder. Get Lord Tywin—now."

The guard did not hesitate. He turned and ran, his armor clanking against the stone as he rushed toward the war room.

Maelor turned, looking up at his older brother. Damon’s scarred face was unreadable, but his grip on Maelor’s arm was tight—almost too tight.

The young boy swallowed.

Outside, the winds howled as if something was coming.

The wind tore through the skies, sharp as Valyrian steel, slicing through the furs that lined your shoulders. Viserion’s wings thundered against the frozen air, her pale scales reflecting the faintest shimmer of what should have been moonlight—but the sky above was a void of black, no stars, no light, only the oppressive weight of endless darkness.

Below, your riders moved in a steady formation, their banners flapping violently as their horses trudged through the snow-covered terrain. You could barely make them out beneath the swirling mist of ice and frost, but they were there—loyal men, brave men, following you into the unknown. The silence of the night was unnatural, the only sound the distant howl of the wind, a mournful wail that curled around the mountains and valleys, whispering of something unseen.

Then, the world shifted.

A wall of ice and snow erupted from the earth without warning, spiraling upward like a specter clawing its way from the abyss. The storm came alive, swallowing the riders below in a matter of heartbeats. One moment, they were there—the next, gone.

Viserion reared back, her wings thrashing against the violent gusts, the force of the winds shoving her sideways. You gritted your teeth, tightening your grip on the saddle, your fingers numb from the freezing air.

"No—no, no, no."

The snow howled, a deafening roar that filled the sky. It wasn’t a natural storm—it couldn’t be. The way it moved, the way it devoured everything in its path—it was something else.

Something unnatural.

"Viserion! Fly higher!" you commanded, but the dragon twisted in the air, her balance faltering. She, too, had lost direction.

You pulled at the reins, attempting to steer her, but there was nothing. No point of reference, no horizon, only the suffocating black.

Then—the screams began.

Muffled, distant, but unmistakable. The wails of dying men and the frantic shrieks of horses as something found them in the dark. The sounds were swallowed almost immediately, as if the very air itself refused to carry the echoes of their deaths.

Viserion bucked wildly beneath you, her body writhing.

"Dracarys!" you roared.

She obeyed, her mighty throat igniting as a torrent of golden-white flame erupted into the void.

It did nothing.

The fire vanished the moment it left her maw, consumed by the very darkness itself. It was as if the night had a hunger of its own, devouring the heat, the light, leaving nothing but the frigid chill of the abyss.

The cold sank into your bones—something was watching.

Then, you saw it.

The darkness broke.

The storm lifted, just enough for you to see what lay ahead.

Your breath seized in your throat, your heart slamming against your ribs.

An army.

An endless army.

Miles upon miles of them, stretching to the very ends of the world. Their armor was frozen over with rime, their flesh long decayed, but their eyes—all of them—burned blue.

They were waiting.

A thousand—ten thousand—a hundred thousand. Their weapons, their rotted banners, their skeletal steeds.

And at their center, it stood.

A figure upon an undead beast, a skeletal dragon with tattered wings of ice. Its rider—tall, gaunt, clad in blackened, frozen armor, its face obscured save for those impossibly bright blue eyes.

The Night King.

His gaze lifted to the sky, and though his expression did not shift, you felt his attention settle on you.

Then—the voice.

A screeching, wretched sound, not spoken but forced into your very skull. It was neither words nor whispers, but pain.

Your vision blurred, agony lancing through your skull like a thousand shards of ice. Your hands trembled against the reins, your breath coming in short, painful gasps.

Viserion screamed.

She twisted midair, writhing in pain as the sound tore through her skull, her mighty wings faltering. You clung to her, barely holding on as she spiraled, her shrieks echoing across the wasteland.

You didn’t know if you were screaming too.

The world spun.

Then—Viserion surged forward.

Her instincts overrode the pain, her body moving. She veered northward, desperate to escape the unseen force trying to drag her from the sky.

The Night King watched.

The wights watched.

The thousands upon thousands of dead watched.

And as you vanished beyond the storm, the voice echoed one last time—a promise.

"Soon."

[i-heart-yellowstone]

Shopping with Beth Dutton

Wattpad request - based off where Monica was getting accused of stealing, but instead it’s the reader. Kayce finds out what happened with you and Beth

Tag list - just send an ask to be added @tallrock35 @kmc1989 @pear-1206 @frost-queen @child-of-of-the-sunshine

Pushing around some clothes that were hanging on the rack I wasn't finding anything that I truly wanted to buy. Kayce, my husband is currently working as Livestock Commissioner now that his father John had stepped down to spend more time with our son Tate. Moving my bag up higher on my shoulder I turned to head out the door till the woman who owned the store got my attention. “Excuse me. Did you think you were just going to walk out of here without me noticing what you took.”

“I'm sorry, are you accusing me of stealing?” I looked over my shoulder at her.

She scoffed going behind her front desk and dialing a number on her phone. “Oh I know you stole something, outsider.”

I was definitely out of my element living here in Montana. My sister Summer Higgins and I had gone our separate ways. She had become an animal rights activist and I had gone and fell in love with the youngest son of a family with the largest land in Montana. Even though I was wearing just a red flannel shirt, ripped blue jeans and some muddy brown boots that went up to my knees almost everyone here could see I didn’t quite fit in. I was as the shop owner called me an outsider.

Taking out my phone I held it in front of my chest texting the first person I could think of that wouldn’t get physical with this woman. I knew if my husband found out he would only resort to violence and likely get arrested by the police. “The police are on their way.”

“I didn’t steal anything.” I spoke to her hiding my phone inside my back pocket.

The shop woman didn’t seem to buy what I was telling her. “I’m gonna find out what you took and you're going to pay for it.”

A few minutes later the police arrived. One man and one woman who approached the shop owner while I remained standing in the corner of the shop. “What seems to be the trouble here, ma’am?” The male officer asked her.

The owner pointed her index finger at me. “She stole something and was about to walk out but I know I saw her. Now she’s refusing to give it up.”

The female officer glanced at me. “Is that true?”

“No. She’s lying.”

The male officer held out his hand. “Can I see your driver's license please?” Handing over my ID he looked it over in silence.

“Search her clothes. She must be hiding it.” The owner snapped at me and I bit my lip wanting to roll my eyes.

The female officer gestured to one of the dressing rooms in the back of the store. I slowly walked back to the area and she entered the dressing room with me. “Take off your clothes.”

“Is this really necessary? I haven’t stolen anything. She’s lying to you just to get attention or something.” I rolled my eyes tugging my shirt over my head and dropping my pants, leaving me standing in my bra and underwear.

The officer looked inside my bra and inside my clothes that I had dropped onto the floor not finding anything there like I knew she would. She stood upright eyeing my underwear ordering me. “Remove your underwear and bend over so I can look there.”

“Are you freaking insane? I’m not doing that.” Raising my voice I crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t comfortable stripping in front of a stranger. I was only comfortable doing something like this around my husband. Kayce and I had a drunk night out at the bar and ended up getting pregnant with our son. It was a good relationship though, we already had feelings for each other before getting drunk and falling into bed with one another.

The officer glared at me with her arms across her chest. “Remove them or I will take you in for failure to comply with an officer.”

Slowly tugging my underwear down my legs I heard my sister in law's voice outside the closed curtains. “Where is she?”

“Who Beth?” the owner asked her.

“My sister in law.” The next thing I know the curtain got thrown open and my sister in law was standing in the doorway, staring at us. “I'm no lawyer, but I believe it's the 4th Amendment that deals with unlawful search and seizure.”

“This search is voluntary.” The female officer spoke.

“Sure doesn't look voluntary to me.” My sister in law didn't buy it, snapping a picture with her phone. “Leave her alone. Get dressed.”

Quickly throwing my clothes back on I found Beth outside pointing at the male officer and then the female officer scolding them for what they tried to do to me. “I went to high school with you. And you, you babysat her husband.”

“On her driver's license, her last name is Higgins.” The male officer pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt that's gonna save you, buddy.”

“Thank you, Beth.” I replied to her with a kind smile, about to walk out the door till she grabbed my forearm.

“Just know I like you cause you eat steak.” She whispered before turning the open sign on the door to close and glaring at the shop owner and went around looking at her products “Wait. Don't go. You'll miss all the fun. Well, I'm here. Might as well shop. Oh, that's nice.”

“Nah. Not for me.” The next item she picked up was a glass statue. She suddenly smashed it against another glass object and smashed it on the countertop until it was completely broken into pieces.

“Beth, I think that’s enough.” I softly spoke towards her direction.

“And you. You fucking cunt, I remember when you gave out hand jobs for lunch money, Veronica. That was before the boob job and the dermabrasion and the doctor dumb enough to marry you.” Beth picked up another object from the counter that she hadn’t broken before picking up a dress and held it out to the woman. The shop owner took it from her hand trying to go to the dressing room but Beth wouldn’t let her. “That's lovely. Model it for me, would you? Oh, I think we're well past dressing rooms, don't you? Try it on here.”

I called out my sister in law's name thinking she had made her point. “Beth.”

“You know, it's not a "have to," Veronica. I can just keep smashing shit. Try it on.” Beth launched the object in her hands against a glass mirror and shoved some things off the nearest table, sitting down on it to watch as the owner removed her clothes. Beth got down and peaked inside her underwear scoffing under her breath. ““Ooh. Spanx. What a shocker. You know, you had an ass like a 12-year-old boy in high school. What happened? Now we're getting somewhere. Well, you're not a real blonde. What a surprise.”

Stepping around the owner I got in her face, slightly feeling sorry for her but she did the same thing to me just because she didn’t know who I was when I walked inside her place of business. “You didn’t know me and because of that you didn’t even give me the chance to explain how wrong you were. Just know I won’t be shopping here anymore and you better hope I never tell my husband about this.”

“Are you ready to go? I need a beer.” Beth asked me waiting by the door and I followed her out not thinking about the owner once we had left her store.

Once we had decided we had enough drinks at the bar and talked we made our way home and back to the ranch. Walking up the wood stairs and opening the front door I was taken by surprise seeing my husband sitting on the end of the couch with his gaze focused on me. “Kayce? I - I thought you’d be in bed.”

“Not when my wife gets accused of stealing and forced to strip in front of a police officer.”

Bringing a hand to my face I groaned in embarrassment, not wanting him to know what occurred today at that store. “You - who told you?”

“Beth.” He answered, getting up from the couch and pulling me in for a brief hug, mumbling into my hair. “Honey, why didn’t you think you could tell me about this?”

Muttering into his gray shirt I felt some tears welling in my eyes. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Y/n, I'm your husband. I’m always going to worry about you.” He broke the hug drawing back so I could see his face. His soft brown eyes looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered in his world, which was entirely true.

Raising a hand up to the side of his face he leaned into the palm of my hand. “Awe Kayce.”

“I love you.” He whispered, lending down and kissing me for the first time since he left to go to work this morning. I kissed him back gripping the fabric of his shirt, deepening the kiss till he broke it. He showed me a cheeky smirk on his face. “Tate is asleep. I know we’ve both had a long day and I was thinking we could go to bed hmm/”

“I’m down for anything, cowboy.” Grinning up at him I nodded, squealing once he had scooped me up in his arms bridal style. He carried me up the stairs and into his bedroom with us both tumbling down onto the mattress. Wrapping my arms around his neck I felt him rest his forehead against mine. “I love you.” Kayce pressed his lips deeply down onto mine, while my fingers knotted into his brown curly hair tugging on it and hearing a moan come from him. The evening became filled with flying clothing and heated kisses, getting completely lost in one another for the rest of the night. Being in a relationship with a Dutton is never easy, but when you need one of them they do come through for you.

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Chondrichthyes - Squaliformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Squaliformes are an order of sharks that includes about 126 species in 7 families. These families include Centrophoridae (“gulper sharks”), Dalatiidae (“kitefin sharks”), Echinorhinidae (“bramble sharks”), Etmopteridae (“lantern sharks”), Oxynotidae (“roughsharks”), Somniosidae (“sleeper sharks”), and Squalidae (“dogfish”).

Members of the order have two dorsal fins, which usually possess spines. They usually have a sharp head, no anal fin or nictitating membrane, and five to seven gill slits. They are found worldwide in saltwater or brackish water. Most species are nocturnal or live in the deep sea. Bioluminescence evolved once in Squaliformes, approximately 111–153 million years ago, and helped the Squaliformes radiate and adapt to the deep sea, thought some of the families have since lost this adaptation. Members of the families Etmoperidae, Dalatiidae, Oxynotidae, as well as the Velvet Dogfish (Zameus squamulosus), still possess photophores, luminous organs, and exhibit intrinsic bioluminescence. While most species are small (less than 2 m long), the Sleeper Sharks are known for having some very large specimens such as the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) which reaches a confirmed length of 6.4 m (21 ft) long, and the Pacific Sleeper Shark (Somniosus pacificus) (gif below) which could possibly reach lengths in excess of 7 m (23 ft). Meanwhile, this order also contains the smallest shark in the world, the Dwarf Lanternshark (Etmopterus perryi), which reaches a maximum adult length of 20 cm (8 in) long.

Squaliformes are ovoviviparous, giving live birth and sustaining their embryos by yolk and possibly also by uterine fluid secreted by the mother. Many have large litters, though this of course varies by species.

The Squaliformes date back to the Late Jurassic.

(source)

Propaganda under the cut:

Dogfish earned their common name after a group of fishermen reportedly observed Spiny Dogfish (Squalus acanthias) chasing down smaller fish in dog-like packs.

The Spiny Dogfish is a highly migratory species: one shark was recorded as travelling 8,000 km (5,000 miles) after being tagged in Washington state, United States, and found again later in Japan.

Uniquely amongst sharks, Dogfish possess venom which coats their dorsal spines; this venom is mildly toxic to humans and is harmful only if the shark is manhandled.

As lanternsharks are often found in large numbers at a time, and with the eyes and beaks of cephalopod species much larger than them in their stomachs, it is likely that they cooperatively hunt in packs. They may use their bioluminescent photophores to keep sight of and coordinate with their cohorts.

Echinorhiniformes are relatively large. The Bramble Shark (Echinorhinus brucus) grows up to 3.1 m (10 ft) long and the Prickly Shark (Echinorhinus cookei) up to 4.0 m (13.1 ft). However, both species are known for being harmless to humans and docile, either tolerating contact or fleeing when closely approached, even though they are sometimes caught as bycatch or used for fishmeal and liver oil.

One record of a pregnant Prickly Shark (Echinorhinus cookei) was gestating 114 embryos! This ranks among the largest known litters from any shark.

The Kitefin Shark (Dalatias licha) is the largest luminous vertebrate known, typically growing 1.0–1.4 m (3.3–4.6 ft) long, though examples as long as 5.9 ft (180 cm) have been encountered. The shark’s bioluminesence is directed downwards from its front or belly. There are two hypotheses for this use of bioluminesence; either it illuminates the sea floor while the shark is searching for prey, or it is used as a counter-illumination camouflage when approaching prey.

The Kitefin Shark has a history of human exploitation. The meat is consumed in the eastern Atlantic and Japan, and the offal processed into fishmeal. The liver oil is utilized in Portugal, Japan, and South Africa. The skin is made into a type of shagreen useful in the making of furniture and jewelry, and is also favored for the manufacture of "boroso", a Spanish polished leather. A fishery targeting this species existed off the Azores from the 1970s to the 1990s, but collapsed when the Kitefin Shark population quickly declined, showing the high susceptibility of deep-sea sharks to human exploitation. The species is now listed as vulnerable.

The Taillight Shark (Euprotomicroides zantedeschia) has a pouch-like gland on its abdomen that emits clouds of luminescent blue fluid as a squid-ink-like defense mechanism.

The genus Isistius contains two species of “Cookiecutter Shark.” These sharks are notorious for biting small chunks off of larger animals in passing, often leaving round, cookie-cutter shaped scars. Cookiecutter Sharks sometimes travel in packs, and if their bite weakens a target and causes it to be unable to swim properly, they will pounce when the prey begins to sink. They will also consume whole smaller prey, such as squid. Their green luminescence is the strongest known of any shark, and is concentrated on their underside, but absent on their throat and gill slits. This creates a dark “collar” that resembles the silhouette of a small fish, while the rest of its body blends into the downwelling light via its bioluminescence. When a would-be predator approaches, the cookiecutter shark latches on.

Due to their deep sea habitat, most sleeper shark species are rarely observed and relatively unknown, making them some of the most mysterious shark species. The Taiwan Sleeper Shark (Somniosus cheni) is only known from a single adult specimen, a 1.34 m (4.4 ft) long pregnant female with 33 embryos, caught in 2017. The Azores Dogfish (Scymnodalatias garricki) has only been caught twice. Fewer than a dozen specimens of Frog Shark (Somniosus longus) have been collected, usually as bycatch. One species, the Longnose Sleeper Shark (Somniosus sp.) has yet to be formally described. Due to the nature of this tournament, I may be unable to even include many of these species in later rounds due to lack of good photographs. But they’re out there. Waiting. Hiding.

Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) meat is toxic to mammals due to its high levels of trimethylamine N-oxide, although a treated form of it is eaten in Iceland as a delicacy known as kæstur hákarl. To make the shark meat safe for human consumption, it is first fermented and then dried in a process that can take multiple months. The shark was traditionally fermented by burying the meat in gravel pits near the ocean for at least several weeks. In the present day, shark cuts are typically fermented in containers that are perforated to allow liquid to drain. The fermentation process converts urea into ammonia and TMAO into TMA, which then drains as liquid from the meat. The meat is then excavated and hung in strips to dry for several more months. In modern times, the Greenland Sharks used for hákarl production are purchased from fishing ships where the sharks were trapped in nets as bycatch, and are not intentionally targeted.

Greenland Sharks are one of the longest and slowest-lived animals on Earth. Pups are born alive after an estimated gestation period of 8 to 18 years. They reach sexual maturity at about 150 years of age. They grow at a rate of 0.5–1 cm a year. Their lifespan is estimated to be up to 500 years. They are the closest things we have to elves.

[zoloteh-volossya]

BG3 Fanfiction Statistics, Part 1

I’ve seen some discussions of BG3 fandom trends floating around tumblr that spoke from experience but lacked hard data to refer to. As a fan of Baldur’s Gate 3, fanfiction, and graphs, I therefore thought it would be neat and illustrative to go through AO3 and document some of the statistics this fandom.

I did a similar exercise back in January and posted the results here. However, I was a bit unhappy with this analysis – it was missing some data that I consider to be relevant, I didn’t end up discussing the results much, and I only posted it to reddit. Most discussions for the creative side of fandom seem to happen on tumblr, so I made this account to post it here.

I will try and be as transparent as possible when discussing how I obtained and processed this data. A copy of my spreadsheet can be found here and contains all of the data I will be discussing. Most of the data I feature in this essay will be presented as graphs. Below each graph I will discuss the patterns shown in the graph and provide what I believe to be some relevant and/or interesting number values. If you want to see all the numbers, please refer to my spreadsheet. If you don’t care about the numbers and/or my thoughts about them, feel free to skim through and just look at the charts!

A note before I start – I gathered this data between July 21, 2024 and July 24, 2024. It is out of date as of my writing this and will be even more out of date by the time you read it. However, I believe the general fandom trends will hold up over time – the same patterns that I observed in January are largely still present in July.

Due to the tumblr post image limit and my preponderance of graphs, I will be breaking this behemoth of an essay into two parts:

General Fandom Statistics, the Player Character, and the Women

The Men, a Character Comparison, and a Pairing Analysis

We are currently in part 1. Part 2 can be found at this link. The rest of part 1 is below the read more because this is very long.

GENERAL FANDOM STATS

This information was found by looking at the side bar when browsing Baldur’s Gate fics. Therefore, this data set includes fics from the previous two Baldur’s Gate games. However, given that the games were released in 1998 and 2000, respectively, most of the fanfiction for them was likely posted to FF.net and the error from including what little fic for them was posted to AO3 is likely small.

At the time of my data gathering, there were 31,043 Baldur’s Gate fics on AO3.

RATINGS

To the surprise of nobody in the BG3 fandom, Explicit fic is the largest category, at 38% of all fics produced. It’s followed by Mature (24%), Teen and Up (20%), General (12%) and Not Rated (6%). Not all of the Explicit and Mature fics are necessarily horny – those warnings also apply to extreme violence (hello, Dark Urge). But let’s be real, most of them are tagged that way for sex.

WARNINGS

Speaking of extreme violence, let’s take a look at the warnings used for fics in this fandom.

Just about half (50.2%) of BG fics have no warnings at all. About 17.6% have warnings for graphic depictions of violence – lower than I would have expected, honestly, for a video game that features as much murder as this one does (at least, how I play it...). About 5.4% of fics feature a warning for rape, 4.7% feature major character death, and 0.5% feature underage sex.

CATEGORIES

AO3 allows users to select any categories from a list of possible options (F/M, M/M, F/F, Gen, Other, and Multi). F/M, M/M, and F/F are pretty self explanatory, Gen fics don’t focus on a relationship, Multi fics focus on a relationship between three or more people, and Other is a catch all for fics that don’t fit into any of the previous categories very well. For shipping with nonbinary (NB) characters, I have seen a variety of approaches. Some people select the category closest to the NB character’s presentation, some select multiple categories, and some select Other.

One very useful tool that I will be introducing here is the use of “otp:true.” When “otp:true” is entered into the “Search within results” bar while filtering tags, AO3 will only return fics that have just one pairing tagged. This filters out all fics that have background pairings or multiple focus pairings. Results with “otp:true” are typically solely focused on that particular pairing.

With all that explanation out of the way, the results:

We can clearly see that the most common category for Baldur’s Gate fics is M/F, with 43.3% of all fics featuring a M/F pairing. 36.4% of all fics feature a M/M pairing, 10.6% feature a F/F pairing, 11.7% are more General, 8.0% feature Multiple people in a pairing, and 10.9% are Other. These percentages add up to more than 100% because a fic can be tagged with multiple categories.

Things change a bit when you filter for “otp:true” and only include fics that focus on just one pairing. In this case, M/M predominates, with a whopping 46.0% of fics. M/F follows with 31.2%, F/F with 11.1%, 7.7% are General, 9.7% are Other, and 3.0% are still tagged as Multi (presumably for fics where the only pairing is a threesome or such).

CHARACTERS

As a last look at more general content before I begin a deep dive into looking at the various characters, I took a look at the 30 most popular character tags.

This was a surprise to me the first time I looked at it in January. In the previous two video game fandoms I was in that had a player character (Mass Effect and Fire Emblem: Three Houses), the player character was the most popular character tag in that fandom. In this case, though, Astarion has the most fics that feature him, and by a pretty significant margin (~5,000 more fics than Tav). He appears in 63.0% of fics. Tav is next, at 46.7% of fics. Then we have the rest of the six Origin characters: Gale (34.5% of fics), Shadowheart (23.7%), Karlach (20.5%), Wyll (18.6%), and Lae’zel (15.9%), as well as Halsin (15.8%) and the Dark Urge (15.3%). That they all are next to each other makes sense, as fics that focus on one character or pairing will often tag the entire ensemble. Lae’zel only showing up 16% of the time seems low, though, for a member of the main cast. To me, this indicates that not many fics are true ensemble fics that include all of the main cast.

After this block of main characters, we drop a bit to Gortash, who shows up in 7.4% of fics. He’s the most popular villain by far, followed by Cazador (4.7%) and Raphael (4.6%). Orin only shows up in 2.9% of fics and Ketheric is featured in only 1.1% of fics.

Jaheira shows up in 4.4% of fics, but her values may include fics from the earlier Baldur’s Gate games. Poor Minthara is the 16th most tagged character and only shows up in 2.5% of fics. Rolan (a tiefling NPC) shows up in more fics than she does.

Despite being featured in previous Baldur’s Gate game fics as well as BG3, Minsc does not seem popular – he’s #25, being tagged in 1.3% of fics.

One thing I did note was the comparative lack of focus on the overarching plot of the game in BG3 fics. I’ll use the Emperor as a barometer for this, as it’s inextricably interwoven into everything having to do with the Absolute, the mysterious artifact, and our protagonists’ immunity to it. Yet, it only appears in 535 fics of over 31,000 – approximately 1.7% of all BG fics. This tells me that there isn’t much engagement with the actual illithid plot of the game in most fics – at least not to the extent where major plot relevant characters are being tagged.

CHARACTER PAIRING STATISTICS

Most of my time for this analysis was spent collecting data for the various pairing tags. I went through the top 300 pairing tags by order of popularity (ending with Mystra/Cazador, of all things) and recorded how many fics each rating had and how many fics each category had both with and without “otp:true” applied. Coincidentally, this included all the pairings with 5 or more fics in them at the time – by sheer luck the 301st pairing tag had only 4 fics. I judged that I could ignore pairing tags with fewer than 5 fics without affecting the results of my analyses too much (also it had taken 4 days to get this far and I was tired).

However, a lot of authors tag their fics with both, say, Astarion/Tav and Astarion/F!OC. But for this exercise I’m not really looking at how authors refer to the Tav/Dark Urge/self insert character in their tagging nomenclature. I’m more interested in how many fics exist for, say, the pairing of Astarion and the player character.

To this end, I combined the numbers for Tav, Dark Urge, OC, F!OC, M!OC, NB!OC, Reader, and You for each character ship. In order to avoid double counting fics, once I had added the numbers for a particular tag I excluded that tag from all future counts.

[X]/PC = [X]/Tav + ([X]/Dark Urge with the [X]/Tav tag excluded) + ([X]/Original Character with the [X]/Tav and [X]/Dark Urge excluded) + ([X]/Reader with [X]/Tav, [X]/Dark Urge, and [X]/Original Character excluded) and so on.

This process dropped the total number of pairings from 300 to 162. However, it also introduces an error. Some fics ship characters with an OC who is not a Tav/Dark Urge/self insert. In condensing all pairings with original characters to the “PC” supercategory, I am ignoring that and counting their original character as a Tav/Dark Urge equivalent. Unfortunately, this is just something I have to live with in order to be able to make the data more manageable, as there is no way to tell which fics are using the OC tag to represent a Tav/Dark Urge and which are not on a mass data scale. I don’t think it will skew the results too much, at least.

I pulled out the top 20 ships for each major character in BG3 (Tav, Dark Urge, the PC, Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel, Minthara, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin) before and after I combined the player character tags into the PC supercategory. For each character, I then determined how much of each fic category (M/F, M/M, F/F, Other, Multi) they had, both for all of their pairings and for their pairing with the PC specifically.

Let's start by looking at the player character and its two representatives.

TAV

Tav is in 71 of the top 300 ship tags in the BG3 fandom.

Astarion completely dominates Tav’s ships, with a whopping 9,235 fics (1,839 otp:true fics). In fact, in order to be able to see the tiny little boxes that represent everyone else, here’s another version of this chart, this time with Astarion excluded.

There, that’s a bit more legible. The next highest is Gale, with 2,909 fics (652 otp:true) – less than a third as many fics as Astarion. Halsin comes third with 1,304 fics (207 otp:true) and Shadowheart is the first canon woman to show up, with 806 fics (132 otp:true). Astarion has more than 11 times as many fics with Tav as Shadowheart does. Karlach comes next, with 724 fics (186 otp:true). Raphael comes sixth, with 176 more fics than #7 Wyll who has 442 fics (100 otp:true). Lae’zel is #11 with 300 fics, under Gortash, Rolan, and a threesome with Halsin and Astarion. Minthara is the least popular main character to ship with Tav. She’s #15 with 146 fics (33 otp:true), and has fewer fics with Tav than Zevlor, the Emperor or Haarlep. In a marked improvement from the state of affairs in January, however, she no longer has fewer fics than Kar’niss.

Taking a look at the fic category breakdown, we can see that M/F and M/M predominate for Tav, while there is very little F/F. Dividing the values by the total number of fics, 59.8% of all fics and 50.2% of otp:true fics are tagged M/F, 35.6% of all fics and 34.9% of otp:true fics are tagged M/M, 7.6% of all fics and 4.4% of otp:true fics are tagged F/F, and 13.2% of all fics and 14.2% of otp:true fics are tagged Other. As the proportions of M/F and F/F fics drop when otp:true is applied, I assume that it is more common for M/F and F/F pairings to have background ships or be a background ship (remember that if it is not otp:true, we have no idea if the pairing with Tav is the pairing category being counted.)

THE DARK URGE

The Dark Urge is in 38 of the top 300 ship tags of the BG3 fandom, a bit over half as many as Tav.

While Astarion once again is the most popular character to ship with the Dark Urge (2,165 fics), this time he actually has competition! Gortash/Dark Urge comes in at a very respectable second place with 1,594 fics (about three quarters of Astarion/Dark Urge’s total fic count) and actually beat Astarion by over 100 fics once you apply otp:true (562 fics for Astarion vs 691 fics for Gortash). But after Gortash we once again drop down to numbers we struggle to even see on the chart. Gale is the most visible with 402 fics total (Gale has fewer fics total with the Dark Urge than Astarion or Gortash have with otp:true applied). After that we have a group of Halsin, Shadowheart, and Karlach, all with between 120-150 fics. No other pairing has over 100 fics.

Dark Urge/Tav (99 fics) and Dark Urge/Orin (87 fics) have more fics than Dark Urge/Wyll (83 fics) or Dark Urge/Minthara (80 fics). For Wyll, this is a sign that his pairing with the Dark Urge is not very popular (he drops from #7 with Tav to #9 with the Dark Urge). For Minthara, however, this is a significant climb in the rankings – she was #15 with Tav and #10 with the Dark Urge.

But what’s really interesting to me is the fic category breakdown for the Dark Urge.

The Dark Urge has noticeably more M/M content than Tav does (47.0% vs 35.6% for all fics, 56.9% vs 34.9% for opt:true) and slightly more F/F content than Tav does (10.2% vs 7.6% for all fics, 5.2% vs 4.4% for otp:true), and correspondingly less F/M content. At 13.4% for all fics and 12.8% of otp:true fics, the proportion of Other fic stays just about the same as for Tav.

THE PLAYER CHARACTER

The PC is a combination of Tav, Dark Urge, Original Character, Reader, and You. The PC is in 64 of the top 162 pairings of the BG3 fandom (losing 5 pairings from Tav as I combined Tav/Tav, Tav/Dark Urge, Tav/Reader and so on into one PC/OC category).

The player character was involved in 76.0% of all pairings and 62.1% of otp:true pairings (that is, if you add up every fic for every pairing which the PC is in and divide it by sum of all fics for all BG3 pairings I tracked). This means that over three quarters of shipping in the BG3 fandom is with the player character. It’s not surprising, but it is notable – that’s a very large proportion.

Holy smokes, Astarion! He dominates the rankings even more than before. This time, I was curious to see how much. See below for a proportional representation of all of the PC pairings (note: because many fics have multiple pairings, this circle does not represent the total number of fics but rather the total number of times any pairing with the PC has been tagged).

Astarion composes a full 45% of all pairings with the PC, Gale is bit over 13%, Gortash is 7.3% for all fics and 11.3% of otp:true fics, while Halsin has the opposite trend with 6.3% of all fics and 4.9% of otp:true fics. Shadowheart, Karlach, Raphael, and Wyll all are between 2% and 4% (with Raphael once again beating Wyll). Lae’zel is down at #11 with 1.4% and Minthara is all the way at #16 with 0.9%.

Out of curiosity, I went through all of the PC’s pairings and sorted them by the gender of the person being shipped with the PC.

Oof.

85.7% of all PC ships are with men, 10.4% are with women, and 1.9% are nonbinary beings (Haarlep, the Emperor, and Omeluum). When you apply otp:true, 87.1% of the player character’s ships are with men, 9.9% are with women, and 1.3% are with nonbinary beings.

SHADOWHEART

Welp! Let’s take a look at that 10%, starting with Shadowheart.

If you add up all the fics for all the pairings that include Shadowheart and divide that by the sum of all fics for all 162 pairings I collected, you can see that she is present in 7.0% of pairings. Interestingly, this is true both for all fics and for otp:true fics. She is in 30 of the top 300 ship tags and 24 of the 162 pairings that remain once the player character tags are consolidated.

(I have shortened Shadowheart's name to SH and Shart in various charts to keep the labels from taking up too much room in the graph.)

Lae’zel/Shadowheart is in close competition with Shadowheart/Tav. When all the player characters are condensed into the PC, though, that gap widens.

Shadowheart has 980 fics with the PC, 694 with Lae’zel, 226 with Karlach, 111 with Gale, 61 with Astarion, 51 with Nocturne, 36 with Halsin, 26 with Minthara, and 21 with Wyll (her least popular ship with a main character, at #12). 7 of her top 20 pairings are threesomes – Aylin/Isobel/SH at #8 with 35 fics, Karlach/PC/SH at #9, Karlach/Lae’zel/SH at #10, Astarion/PC/SH at #13, Halsin/PC/SH at #14, Karlach/Wyll/SH at #17, and Gale/Lae’zel/SH at #18.

Lae’zel/Shadowheart has an unusually high number of otp:true fics – almost half of its total fic count. It seems more popular to ship Shadowheart with women than men – both her ships with Lae’zel and Karlach are more popular than Astarion, Gale, or Wyll and her threesomes with women have more fics than her threesomes with men.

The fic category breakdown for Shadowheart matches this expectation.

Boy howdy is Shadowheart fic gay! She has over twice as much F/F fic than M/F fic, just looking at raw numbers of fics. Looking at the proportions of her total fic count, F/F fic represents 71.4% of all of her fics, M/F fic is 35.2%, Other is 10.0%, and Multi is 18.8%. (These percentages add up to more than 100% because many fics tag multiple categories.) This also means that we can’t know that these numbers necessarily include Shadowheart – witness the numbers of M/M fics. All it means is that these categories were on fics in which a Shadowheart pairing was also tagged.

Looking at the otp:true numbers gives us a better picture of what fics where only Shadowheart is in a relationship are like (though this not necessarily an accurate idea of patterns for her overall, as less than a third of her total fics are otp:true). 76.4% of otp:true fics are F/F, 19.8% are M/F, 3.8% are Other, and for some reason 1.2% (9 fics) are M/M. Over three quarters of Shadowheart’s otp:true pairings are femmeslash.

Shadowheart’s fics with the PC character follow pretty much the same pattern as her ships more generally, albeit with slightly less F/F (likely from the loss of the relative behemoth that is Shadowheart/Lae’zel).

32.9% of her pairings with the PC have the M/F tag, 68.1% are tagged F/F, 11.3% are tagged Other, and 18.5% are tagged Multi. Applying otp:true, 25.7% are M/F, 62.6% are F/F, and 12.3% are Other (this likely includes a substantial portion of nonbinary PCs).

KARLACH

Karlach is present in 6.0% of all fic pairings and 5.4% of otp:true fic pairings. She has 31 ship tags in the top 300 ship tags, which condense down to 26 pairings when all player character stand ins are combined.

Her second most popular ship after Tav is with Wyll, though unlike with Shadowheart the pairing is not popular enough to give Tav a run for his/her/their money. Condensing all the player characters widens this gap significantly.

The PC is overwhelmingly Karlach’s most popular ship, with 890 fics. Wyll is second, with 327 fics – less than half as many. Shadowheart and Astarion follow with 226 and 157, respectively. Dammon is next, with 91 fics, and then Lae’zel has 65. She then has a number of threesomes, Minthara (#9 with 32 fics), and Gale (#11 with 18 fics). Halsin is her least popular pairing with a main character, coming in at #15 with 11 fics.

Surprisingly, for all that Karlach is fairly butch, her pairings with men are relatively more popular than we see with the more femme Shadowheart. The category statistics illustrate this clearly.

Compared to Shadowheart, Karlach has a lower proportion of F/F and higher proportions of M/F and Multi fics. F/F is tagged on 51.8% of her fics, M/F on 42.5%, Other on 12.3% and Multi on 27.7%. (Remember that fics can be tagged with multiple categories and that just because a category is tagged doesn’t mean that Karlach is involved in that category.) Looking at otp:true gives us a look at fics where she is the sole focus. F/F is 55.0% of her otp:true fics, M/F drops to 34.4%, Multi drops to 6.1%, and Other stays fairly high at 10.4%.

In Karlach’s pairings with the player character, things change significantly.

It immediately becomes clear that the large number of M/F fics in her general pairings were largely due to her relatively popular ships with Wyll, Astarion, and Dammon. F/F dominates Karlach’s pairings with the PC with 64.0% (67.8% with otp:true applied) of fics, which puts her at just slightly less than Shadowheart. M/F is tagged in 28.5% of her fics with the PC (14.0% with otp:true applied), Multi is tagged 19.4% but drops to 1.2% for otp:true, and Other remains high with 18.0% of fics and 20.2% of otp:true fics with the PC.

Back in January, I noted that of the main cast, Karlach had the highest proportion of ships with nonbinary OCs. I didn’t track the breakdown of OC subcategories this time, but the high numbers in the Other category bear it out.

LAE'ZEL

Counting all fics for all pairings in which Lae’zel is tagged, she is in a mere 3.8% of BG3 pairings, though it rises to 4.5% when otp:true is applied. She is in 23 of the top 300 ship tags, a number that drops down to 18 when I consolidate the player character tags together.

Shadowheart/Lae’zel has twice as many fics as Lae’zel/Tav. Looking at the situation with the PC does not change this much.

Unlike any other main character, Lae’zel’s most popular ship is not with the PC but with Shadowheart. She has 694 fics with Shadowheart, 355 with the PC, 65 with Karlach, 26 with Gale, 26 with Wyll, 25 with Astarion, 16 with Minthara, and 12 with Halsin. She is in an unusually low number of threesomes – only 4. It’s notable though how skewed her numbers are towards women – a threesome with Karlach and Shadowheart has more fics than any of her pairings with a canon man. The various whole team multiship pairings, none of which have more than 11 fics, comprise most of the tail end of her ship list.

Speaking of the tail end of her ship list, what happens when we condense the player character tags is that Lae’zel does not reach a full 20 ships – she drops to 18 pairings. She has more than this, of course, but my methodology ignores all pairings with fewer than 5 fics (which means that my friend’s Lae’zel/Astarion/Tav fic is not counted). Therefore, Lae’zel’s 19th and 20th most popular pairings have 4 fics or fewer. I have represented these missing pairings with little :( emojis, because this is a sad state of affairs.

This is a symptom of a state of affairs in which Lae’zel is just not very popular in the AO3 side of BG3 fandom. Her most popular ship is Shadowheart’s second most popular ship, and the numbers crater after that. No Lae’zel ship other than Shadowheart and the PC has more than 100 fics.

Lae’zel’s most popular ships being women is demonstrated clearly by the fic category breakdown.

Wow! At a whopping 76.3% of all of Lae’zel’s fics and 88.9% of Lae’zel’s otp:true fics, Lae’zel has a higher proportion of F/F fic than Shadowheart. Granted, they’re both sizable portions of each other’s total F/F count. 26.1% of Lae’zel’s fics have the M/F tag, though this drops to a mere 7.1% when otp:true is applied. Other is tagged in 11.6% of fics but drops to 2.0% with otp:true. 18.1% of her fics are tagged Multi but this likewise drops to 4.4% with otp:true.

The pertinent question for Lae’zel is how much of her F/F count is due to her pairing with Shadowheart? How gay are her pairings with the PC?

The answer is... still pretty gay! F/F is not quite as dominant, with 67.3% of all her fics with the PC and 80.0% of her fics where only Lae’zel/PC is tagged – but 80% is a still a really high proportion! This indicates to me that a lot of the M/F in the “All Fics” chart likely does not involve Lae’zel. M/F is tagged in 33.5% of her fics with the PC, a number which is more than halved to 12.7% when otp:true is applied. 13.2% of her fics are tagged Other, which drops to 5.5% with otp:true ��� much less than for Shadowheart and Karlach. It seems either Lae’zel is not as popular for nonbinary OCs or that a large proportion of the Other tag is from mind flayer Tavs/Durges and people don’t write Lae’zel with a mind flayer love interest.

One other notable fact is that Lae’zel is the only female companion without any otp:true M/M PC fic. It could be due to her low fic numbers in the first place, but I prefer to think that Lae’zel fans are simply more fastidious about correctly tagging fic. It certainly fits her character.

MINTHARA

Ah, Minthara. Unquestionably the least popular of the main romanceable characters in BG3, her pairings only comprise 1.1% of all BG3 fanfic pairings, a number that rises to a whopping(/sarcastic) 1.4% of otp:true pairings. She has only 14 ship tags in the 300 most popular ship tags for BG3, a number that drops further to a mere 9 pairings once I’ve combined all the player character tags.

What’s notable about Minthara’s ship tags is the popularity of the Dark Urge relative to Tav. Minthara has 146 fics with Tav and 80 with the Dark Urge. This is a higher proportion than other main characters have. It may be because more people write her on evil routes (which likely disproportionately feature the Dark Urge) or because she has some very good lines for the Dark Urge and their Slayer form.

Another observation is the lack of primary non-PC ships. The other characters that I look at all have a major non-PC ship – Shadowheart/Lae’zel, Karlach/Wyll, Gale/Astarion, Wyll/Astarion, Halsin/Astarion. Minthara doesn’t really have that. Her most popular non-PC ship is Orin, at #5 and with a mere 45 fics. This is illustrated clearly once all the player character tags are combined.

The PC dominates Minthara’s pairings to an extent not seen with any other character, not even Astarion. She drops from 234 fics with the PC (65 otp:true) to 45 fics with Orin (26 otp:true), 32 with Karlach (16 otp:true) and 26 with Shadowheart (11 otp:true). Every other pairing has 16 or less fics. Tying into that, Minthara has very few pairings with 5 or more fics. She does not even have enough for a top 10! I have replaced her missing pairings with the :( emoji because this is sad.

Another notable thing about this chart, though, is how few fics Minthara has just in general. Lae’zel and Wyll, the other neglected companions, both have at least 500 fics with their most popular partner. Minthara does not even break 250. In fact, none of her pairings with someone other than the PC have over 50 fics.

Another interesting fact is that Minthara is the only character in this analysis to not have any threesomes or moresomes in her pairings with over 5 fics. She doesn’t share, it seems.

For some reason, Minthara has 8 ships with Councillor Florrick of all people. And it’s not all by the same author, which is what I would expect for a somewhat out there pairing. Presumably someone out there wrote a really good fic which then inspired others to play with the idea. In a small fandom like Minthara’s, one fic like that can make quite a difference.

As can be expected, Minthara’s fic categories are pretty damn gay.

F/F is tagged in 79.0% of her fics (77.6% of otp:true fics). M/M is tagged in 21.3% of her fics (17.1% of otp:true fics), Other in 6.1% (4.6% otp:true), and Multi in 8.9% though it drops to 1.3% of her otp:true fics. With these numbers, Minthara is arguably the gayest major character in the BG3 fandom by fic count, though Lae’zel beats her when you take otp:true into effect.

This pattern holds true when looking at her ship with the player character. 77.8% of her fics with the PC are tagged F/F (73.8% of otp:true fics), 23.5% are tagged M/F (15.4% otp:true), 8.5% are tagged Other (10.8% otp:true), and 9.4% are tagged Multi (3.1% otp:true). The latter is a bit confusing given that she has no multiship pairings. It may include collections of Reader/[X] fics that include Minthara.

PART 2

Welp. I’ve run into the tumblr post image limit. For part 2 of this essay, which discusses Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Halsin and then compares all 8 of the main characters against each other on a variety of metrics, see this link.

[outofangband]

Of Beleriand and its Reams: Synopsis

A couple of people asked me to write this including @nelyoslegalteam , @eilinelsghost and @thescrapwitch I personally love this chapter because I love geography.

Here is a map of Beleriand for reference!

I’ve made more in depth posts about most of these places on my environment and geography Masterlist and my Beleriand tag but I’m always happy to elaborate so please let me know! I love making environment posts🌲🌲

First there is the Iron Mountains or the Ered Engrin. This is the vast range to the north of Beleriand and adjacent realms. It’s described as a cold region heavy in volcanic activity, the most notable being Thangorodrim or the mountains of Tyranny

South of this region is the Ard Galen, a wide green plain that is destroyed during Dagor Bragollach.

Southwest of the Ered Engrin is Hithlum, the land of mists. This was a cool but mild, temperate region surrounded on its eastern, southern and western sides by mountains. Hithlum contains within it several smaller realms; Mithrim in the southeast corner with a smaller mountain range on its eastern border, and Dor-lómin which lies west of the mountains of Mithrim. The Ered Lómin or echoing mountains lie on its western border.

Nevrast lies west of Hithlum beneath the Firth of Drengist, a break in the echoing mountains where the sea juts in. It’s described as a hollow land surrounded by mountains and cliffs on its eastern coast. There is a large lake called Linawaean surrounded by reedy marshes. The original point of Turgon’s host was located in eastern Nevrast.

Next in the chapter, we switch to southeast of Ard Gallen where we find Dorthonion, one of the few locations to be given a length; sixty leagues east to west. It’s covered in a variety of habitats, most notably pine forests in the west and north.

Between Dorthonion and the Ered Wethrin there lay the Pass of Sirion, a vale or valley surrounded by pines and through which the river Sirion ran. There also lay a small isle, Tol Sirion which was held for some time by Orodreth.

The river Sirion ran from Eithel Sirion, located in the northwest corner of Hithlum in the Ered Wethrin to the Havens of Sirion in southern Beleriand where the river met the bay of Balar. It had a number of tributaries the largest of which was Narog. Note: I also have guides to the rivers throughout Beleriand here and a map of them I drew here! For this reason I didn’t go into great detail on the paragraph describing the flow of Sirion. I hope that’s okay!

The realm of Nargothrond is the realm located between the river Sirion on the west and its tributary, river Narog on the east. The region was in southern mid Beleriand and was of course where the great fortress of Nargothrond was located. Twenty five leagues east of the fortress of Nargothrond lay the falls of Sirion, from which after this, Sirion fell underground. Where it emerges again was called the gates of Sirion.

The next significant settlement west of Nargothrond are the havens of the Falathrim under Círdan the shipwright. These were known as the Havens of the Falathrim and contained two cities, Eglarest and Brithombar.

Next the chapter shifts across Beleriand to the Eastern reams. Though it is not mentioned in detail in the chapter, Gondolin is located in the Encircling Mountains, east of the Pass of Sirion. Below Gondolin is Dimbar, an empty land.

Next mentioned are the Ered Gorgoroth, the mountains of terror which rose upon the southern border of Dorthonion. Beneath it is the land of Nan Dungortheb or the valley of dreadful death, the land Ungoliant came to after attacking Morgoth and where her kin ran rampant.

South of Nan Dungortheb was Doriath, the realm of Thingol and Melian. Doriath was made up of several forests within it, with only Nivrim located west of the river Sirion. (Though it’s not detailed here, the Forest of Brethil lies west of Doriath)

In the southwestern part of Doriath is the Twilit Meres or Aelin Uial, located where Sirion met Aros, in a marshy confluence.

South of this is a steep land where hills run from Eglarest past the region of Nargothrond, ending in the hill Amon Ereb in eastern Beleriand. The length of hills was called Andram, the long wall.

Southeast of Amon Ereb was the Forest Between rivers, or Taur-Im-Duinath, named for its location between the river Sirion and the river Gelion (see below)

Gelion is a long river running from the hills of Northeastern Beleriand along the border of Ossiriand, the easternmost region of Beleriand. From Gelion flowed six tributaries, running east into the Ered Luin or Blue Mountains which bordered the eastern side of Ossiriand

We return to East of Dorthonion where we find the March of Maedhros where his fortress, Himring rose around smaller hills.

South of the March was Himlad, a land of plains where Celegorm and Curufin held for many years.

East of the spring from which Gelion sprang in the hills south of Himring was Maglor’s Gap, the break in the hills and cliffs that made up the region.

East of this and north of Ossiriand was Thargelion, the realm Caranthir held. His citadel was located near the lake Helevorn which was shadowed by the blue mountains

Finally, there was Estolad, another region of plains located between Doriath and Ossiriand. This was held by Amrod and Amras.

This completes our journey through the chapter “Of Beleriand and its Realms”!

Other note: I’m making a Tolkien synopsis tag but it won’t be ready until a couple hours after I post this

[prozach27]

As someone who has had posts supporting Kamala Harris in the 2024 election receive an influx of attention, I think it’s worth mentioning that this leads to a number of accounts 1) sending me copy and pasted, word for word indictments of her not letting Palestinians speak at the DNC, and 2) reblogging the post to state that people who support democrats are racist because democrats “support genocide” - despite my post arguing that democrats shouldn’t be trusted to have our best interest in mind and that they’re complicit in genocide but more likely to capitulate to demands than a Trump administration. Interestingly, those who reblog to talk about how white democrats supporting Kamala are racist also have never offered a single alternate option, have no candidates they’re recommending, and offer no ways to support Palestine during their critique.

I am BEGGING you all to recognize election interference when it is this blatant. Do you know who is most likely to become concerned about voting based on this messaging? White liberals in their teens and 20s who make up a significant portion of the Democratic voting population. Do you know who falls victim to people concerned about how “Harris won’t let Palestinians speak” at the DNC? Liberals who care about Palestine, which is DEMONSTRABLY the largest portion of the voting base. We will never have a viable candidate for president who presses for everything we want against Israel since they’re one of our closest allies for decades. Regardless, voting for president isn’t about voting for who’s the best person - it’s about voting for the enemy you want in office to fight against in meeting your demands. You have Trump, who has told Israel to finish the job, and Harris, who has repeatedly discussed ceasefires and resolutions. If your politics see those two positions as no different, tell that to the Palestinian lives who will be saved in a ceasefire brokered by the US.

Tumblr is once again home to election interference, and I am asking you to please recognize the signs that accounts are preying upon potential Democratic voters to get Trump in office and make things exponentially worse. Question why someone is railing against Harris while offering no alternative. Ask yourself, “who is it this person is telling me to support in the election, how viable is their preferred candidate to win, and why do they think they’re better?” If a post tearing down Harris can’t meet these basic requirements, assume it’s election interference and report it. Better yet, reblog this post and tag blogs who continually fail to meet these requirements so people can block them. We need to be aware that this is happening. It’s time to combat it as a community.

[confession-of-the-heart]

So amid all of the pairing discourse being sent to this blog, one little thing stuck out to me. Someone commented claiming that AkuRoku is one of the most popular pairings on AO3 with some of the largest numbers of fics, but being the statistics nerd I am, and knowing the general trajectory of this fanbase, I decided to run some numbers and put that claim to the test.

(Actually, looking into that got me really curious about the general popularity over time of all the relatively notable pairings in KH, so I think I might eventually make a formal post compiling all my findings once I have a little more time. This is definitely informal, but it’s just an initial impression of my research thus far. Obviously, take this with a grain of salt: fanfic is only one piece of the general popularity puzzle, but it does seem to be generally understood as a decent benchmark for analysis of broader trends within fandoms.)

As a note, I measured fic numbers by date of update from April to April, year to year on AO3, so factors like game release date timing should be taken into account.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, SoRiku is the undisputed king of KH shipping. It’s been going incredibly strong since 02 but even then experienced a massive jump at KH3’s release, number of fics updated in the year multiplying nearly 6x in 2019 from where it had been in 2017. It’s slowly settled down since, but is still holding at well over 300 fics per year, even during this content drought. It’s vastly above everything else in popularity and always has been.

Most pairings have followed a similar pattern since KH3’s release: The entire fandom experienced a general jump in activity and most pairings got a boost from 2018-2020, although some more dramatically than others: Akusai fics (inclusive of fics tagged just leaisa, just akusai, or both, not counting the same fics twice) experienced a more dramatic leap than any other pairing in 2019, going from just 40 in 2017, to 183 the following year, to 350 in 2019–an 8x jump in interest. (Wow!)

Like Soriku, most other pairings have generally gone fallow since 2020, as that was the last time we all got any sort of content. (Missing Link when Nomura.)

As far as the stats for Akuroku go… Honestly a bit gobsmacked by the trends in the data. I decided to include both number of fics updated per year on both AO3 and fanfiction.net, as the fandom’s early 2000s heyday can’t really be accounted for on AO3. fanfiction.net’s numbers are a little inflated because I couldn’t honestly be bothered to separate out the infinitesimally small number of non-ship fics in the 2000s and early 2010s from the overwhelmingly large proportion of ship fics there, but if you compare how many fics that pairing used to get in its heyday from 2006-2011, it used to average out at roughly 1000 fics a year.

From 2012 on, the drop in popularity is precipitous—on both fanfiction.net and AO3. it had less than half the fics in 2012 on fanfiction.net than it did in 2010, and it’s continued to exponentially decline there since. For example, there were no AkuRoku ships updated on fanfiction.net last year, and there were only 2 updated the year before. (Noting that fandoms at large did begin to increasingly migrate away from fanfiction.net after 2012, which also explains similar but less extreme declines in otherwise healthy ships like SoRiku on that website).

It fares a little better on AO3, although it’s been eclipsed in popularity by ships that were once drastically less popular than it involving the same characters at several points—Leaisa/Akusai for example consistently had hundreds more fics than it from around 2018-2020, an impressive feat considering that ship basically didn’t exist prior to 2013~2014, although it’s gone quieter since.

AkuRoku has remained pretty much consistent at roughly 150~200 fics per year on AO3 since 2012 (a couple years have had roughly a 10~20 variance above or below that, no significant jumps either way, though it did roughly halve from a high year in 2020 to a low year in 2021) which leads me to believe that it’s… probably more off in its own world separate from what the rest of the fandom is doing than other ship communities? It doesn’t follow the same trends as ships that are more closely following the story developments in canon do.

It’s kind of surprising to see it be that much of a general drop, though. I knew it was less popular than it once was, but I didn’t realize just how much less popular it really is. 150~200 fics updated a year sounds like a lot, but if you compare it to how absurdly ubiquitous it used to be, it’s a shadow of its former self. Unless KH4 has a bunch of interactions with them and them alone, going by the trends and general attitude of the fandom, I think it’ll probably just continue to slowly lose momentum. It still has a lot of diehards, but it would appear that the majority compared to that of 15-20 years ago have jumped ship, so to speak. I have a feeling that if Roxas ever gains any significant peer relationships with different male characters in the future, it’ll likely be another nail in the coffin for it as enthusiasm for a gay Roxas ship bleeds elsewhere.

So, uh, basically… everyone who’s freaking out about it, chill? It’s probably just going to continue slowly petering out on its own eventually as the next games move away from the characterization that initially made it popular, whether anyone wants it to or not. That’s what fic trends would appear to indicate, at any rate.

Side note: out of all the pairings I’ve analyzed popularity over time for thus far, I’m surprisingly impressed by Naminé/Xion. I thought it was way more of a rarepair than it actually is. It’s not going anywhere crazy like Soriku, but it’s actually rather consistent with other moderately popular kid pairs like Roxas/Xion on AO3, and saw a jump in numbers above Roxas/Naminé of all things from 2019-2020, which I would never have anticipated. Let’s go lesbians! I guess KH3 really did change things up.

~~~

[vaspider]

I want to learn more about Jewish culture and history after a recent Ancestry test confirmed my family are Ashkenazi Jews, but the process is daunting with the state of misinformation and antisemitism in the USA. How can I start if going to a synagogue and asking is just not an option? (Comments and info in tags are welcome)

A few places to start. :)

I have tried to provide a basic, broad selection of sites across a number of different strains of thought within the Jewish world. None of these links are an endorsement of a particular site, publication on that site, or point of view on that site. We're Jews: we disagree strenuously about deeply essential things & are still one people.

I really hate that I have to say these things, but every time I post about Judaism at all, someone comes through like they think they're Encyclopedia Brown or some shit, trying to sniff out what I 'really mean' by what I post. What I mean is that these are basic resources. :)