#real tags be upon you. on account of I've spent one million years on this.

[chiropteracupola]

an assortment of my temeraireverse fic-dragons!

[cygnet and honoré are from fifteenth-century britain and france, aquilillus, flavia magna, and bán are from second-century britain, and cipachcoatzin is from sixteenth-century mesoamerica]

[dollypopup]

As a third party to this discussion, I have to say that you are coming off incredibly patronizing with this response. There is, of course, always hyperbole in what fans say they want, but it exacerbates in fandoms, and I don't know how long you've been in the Polin fandom, in a lot of ways it doesn't matter, but to give some context, I've been here for two years. And I have watched the way the fandom has changed.

The fans want a lot of things, but many of these things hinge on Colin's humiliation, and on rejecting an empathetic reading of his character. What you list out as a laundry list of desires from fans is not universal. I was writing stories around the time of 'god, I just want them to find each other, I love them so much' and, slowly, we boiled the frog. We went from 'Colin is the imperfect man of her heart' to 'Colin is a fucking idiot who needs to grovel for her forgiveness'. When you say 'no true fan of Polin' who makes that distinction? You? Me? The council of Polin fans? The archives? Nic and Newts? The fans themselves?

Because there are certainly a lot of fans in Polin spaces that insist they have more empathy for Debling, an external plot device we know nothing about, to be with Penelope than our own main lead. There are certainly many fans who absolutely mean it when they say 'Colin doesn't deserve Penelope'. The jokes start as jokes and then spiral and boulder their way into popular fan desires.

Look, I love angst as much as the next person, but the reality is that the angst needs to be rooted in some sort of character growth. The fandom only wants Colin to grow in the direction of Penelope, to make her his entire world, and that just isn't romance. His jealousy, his making amends, it is not for him to be a full character in this fandom, but for Penelope to get what the fandom feels she deserves.

I, for one, am here for a story of tenderness and forgiveness, a story of 'I spent a long time thinking I saw you, but I see you so much more clearly, now'. A story of 'I always loved you as a friend and now it's grown to more'

Will we be as quick to call her stupid, an idiot, a fool, that she doesn't deserve him when she slanders him, her friend, in her publication, and then continues to keep it from him as their relationship progresses? When she lies and continues lying? Will we be as harsh when her ills are taken into account in the scope of their romance?

We shouldn't be, because a scorecard isn't romance. We want romance, and the humiliation fans have wished upon Colin does not fit that bill.

EDIT: And I forgot to say that fans like you and opinions like this have made this fandom a hostile place to Colin fans. You come here talking down to your fellow fan. Refusing empathy. You are defending the majority opinion as if it has not been done a million times before. As if Antis haven't taken our own posts as proof we hate half our couple. As if my friends have not been bullied from Polin spaces by fellow Polin fans. You do not reach across the table, but immediately claim immaturity on their part. You do not seek to understand or listen to the context, but to argue as though our hesitations in a fandom that has called for suffering and groveling is somehow unfounded.

You assume this post is shaming instead of what it is: an exhaustion for the unbalanced fandom dynamics in Polin. And I think you need to consider why that is. Why our fandom is constantly calling for blood. Why posts about how Colin should have died out on his travels go by uncontested in his own tags, but posts about how we want romance and not suffering and jealousy is somehow a hot topic. Why the polin subreddit is FLOODED with love for an OC we know nothing about, and constant calls for seeing Colin miserable

Because be so real right now, we, his very own fandom, do not love and appreciate Colin. And we certainly don't love or welcome his fans, either

Nic & Luke: This season is soooo romantic

The fandom: Groveling Suffering Jealousy

Is that really what y’all think romance is?

[transfemininomenon]

hey alice I've seen you mention then before and they seem really interesting and I was wondering if you could tell us more about your dnd characters! (Whichever your favorite is or who you feel like talking about) or even a tag you have where I could read up more!

:O i would LOVE to talk about some of my dnd characters

my three main ones are my half-elf raven queen warlock gwyndolin (aka gwyn), my human swashbuckler rogue gertrude, and my life cleric alicia 

gwyn was the character i played when @speechjam was DMing who is a half-moon elf with Parental Baggage (because what’s a half-elf who doesnt have an iffy relationship with their parents) who is very gay and very trans and canonically Really Hot because she has a literally goddess gifted body. her parents raised her in an elf city where she experienced a lifetime of racism for being a half-elf, and that combined with not having a great relationship with her parents as well as dealing with dysphoria eventually led to her attempting suicide. however when this happened, she suddenly found herself before the raven queen, who told her it was not yet her time, and offered her a deal - a new body and some of her power in exchange for making a pact with her. she readily agreed, and was reborn as gwyndolin

since then she’s spent a few years acting as a servant of the raven queen, acting as a sort of soul bounty hunter tracking down people who had unnaturally escaped death and dealing with necromancers/undead infestations. eventually she happened to take a job that led to her meeting the party, including happening to bump into her elf druid cousin solira played by @lyssatbqh

she’s also a total Disaster Lesbian and cant talk to women to save her life which is a problem when Lots of women want to talk to her on account of being Really Hot. she has a thing for knives and has like 8 of them on her. she also has a spirit familiar in the form of a raven named crawford who she always makes keep watch for her at night instead of doing it herself

THEN gertrude is the character i play in @lyssatbqh‘s campaign, which is a homebrew campaign set in the dark souls world. gertrude’s whole life was spent believing that humanity didnt matter and only existed to serve the gods - lessons instilled in her from birth by her parents. often being left alone while her parents were off doing whatever religious things they were off doing, she grew used to wondering the city of anor londo by herself, exploring every alley and climbing every roof top, having just a dagger given to her by her parents as a form of protection 

as she grew older her parents tried getting her more involved in the way of white (the religious organization they were a part of), and gertrude never really quite got the whole “sit and study and pray” part of it, but she found ways to use her natural charisma and dexterity to instead serve the gods by acting as a spy against people who might speak out against the gods. this is how she met the party initially, being sent by one of the gods to spy on a book club founded by @speechjam‘s character brillin. long story short the party ended up encountering some of the witches of izalith, went to izalith right as the witch of izalith was trying to recreate the first flame, and they all fucking DIED 

some long period of time later the party all mysteriously came back to life, and have since came back to life any time they have died, always returning to whatever fire they’d rested at. the whole experience of dying and coming back forced gertrude to, for the first time in her life, have to think about being a human and what humanity meant and what her place in the world was, and she proceeded to go into a several week long existential crisis. during this time the party investigated some mysterious happenings around the city of new londo involving other people coming back to life, fought some demons, and eventually made their way back to anor londo

the whole time gertrude was hoping returning to anor londo would get her some answers from the god she had been working for by the name of flame god flann. however, upon returning he offered no real help, and seemingly didnt even remember that she had worked for him. this furthered her growing crisis and fear and doubt, and eventually the party confronted her about her sneakiness and dodging questions, and she confessed the nature by which she’d originally joined the group, and asked for their forgiveness and explained that she’d suddenly had a Lot to think about and that a lot of things she thought she’d known had been thrown out the window. the party was initially hurt, especially brillin, and gertrude suddenly found herself for the first time Caring about other people and how her actions had effected them, but they eventually forgave her and they continued to all work together to maybe figure out a little more on what was happening

encountering two strange people known as skin man and skeleton man, the party worked with them and eventually learned that skin man also was coming back from the dead, but also seemed to be fading away more and more each time he came back - becoming less of himself and more just a blank husk. eventually skin man went missing, and the party found him by a mysterious machine that could answer questions for them - in exchange for memories

gertrude used it to ask two questions, choosing first between the memories of her time working for flann, her time with the way of white, and her memories of brillin, who she had grown increasingly close with throughout their travels (because gertrude is a Fool and JUST kept jokingly flirting until she fooled around and caught real feelings), eventually choosing the way of white. she then had the option of flann, brillin, or her forgetting the memories and associations that her daggers had with her, eventually choosing daggers

her questions were if the gods cared about her, about people, and then the second was if she, too, was gonna steadily fade away the more she died. she received a simple answer for both - no, and yes 

initially going into another crisis, she soon shock that feeling off and decided on a new course of action, a flame suddenly lighting in her as she realized that she couldn’t rely on the gods anymore, and that it was people, and her new found friends, that she had to rely on. the gods were seemingly uncaring about their current plight, and she would find answers on her own. no longer being shackled by the gods, she would suddenly live as she was meant to - as a person, as a human 

the party eventually fought a couple more demons and, with the help of skeleton man, defeated them. in the aftermath, gertrude and brillin FINALLY smooched and it was RAD, and they later had a roof top discussion about everything and about Them. they came to the conclusion that neither of them really knew what was happening, or what their place in the universe was, and the weight of the inevitably of them both hollowing was ever present, but they wouldn’t focus on that - they would focus on the now, on living as best they could in the moment, and deciding that they would eventually figure things out, and they would do that Together 

dang i didn’t mean to do just a plot summary of that whole campaign so far but i got TOO into talking about gertrude i just……………….. love her so much guys she has learned and grown so much she literally started off as half a joke character i literally threw her concept together 10 minutes before the first session started and she became so!!!!! much more than i could’ve ever expected

anyway my other character is alicia aka the Divine Lady who i cant talk about TOO much because i just started playing her and friends in that campaign follow me and there’s #spoilers but she’s a life cleric who was once a shy awkward little boy named joey who has grown in to a slightly less awkward but no less shy but STRONG woman. she’s a life cleric and JUST wants to help people she’s really caring and is always worried about someone and i love her she’s such a change of pace from my usual edgy characters she is TOO good for this world and has two beautiful lesbian blacksmith moms and a million adopted “cousins” who she all loves dearly 

she’s surprisingly Buff, enjoys blacksmithing (she made all of her armor and weapons), is a big fan of beauty in all forms, is an avid reader, and is constantly writing letters home to her family and keeping a diary of her adventures. she worships lethandar (aka god of birth & renewal) as well as sune (aka goddess of beauty), with the symbol of sune crafted into her shield and her mace designed to have a sun motive for lethandar, and she has big dorky glasses because she’s blind as a bat

some other side characters include primrose my college of swords bard who is JUST primrose from octopath traveler, ailce my water genasi druid that i usually play in one shots who in the most recent one shot i played her in adopted a wonderful child who has bat ears and was NOT appreciated by their parents and she loves them with all her heart, and ari “the banshee” who is a city cleric in a modern space based campaign who is an anarchist and part of a punk rock band 

oh! also i have a tag for gwyn (which is just #gwyn tag) and TWO for gertrude (#former gertrude tag and #gertrude tag, former being for dagger related things since she lost her love of them) and im sure i’ll get an alicia one going! its all just like aesthetic stuff or things i relate to them but you can get a good sense of those characters through those