#sylvaina critical I guess?

[mikaila-orchard]

Sylvaina pet peeve: The Alliance Favoritism.

So I figured now would be a good time to air this particular grievance now that MoP Remix is reminding people of the Purge of Dalaran and leave them thinking, "Jaina, what the fuck!?"

So a lot of Sylvaina content kind of mirrors official WoW content in that there is an obvious Alliance favoritism there (if not a concrete Jaina favoritism). Jaina's feelings and internal struggles take up the vast majority of the stories. Sylvanas is the one who has to work on herself and feel worthy of Jaina's love, and so much of the supporting cast of these stories includes the Alliance Leadership and/or the Blood Elves. Other characters from the Horde races barely show up at all. FR, think of how many Sylvaina stories you've read where Anduin was in the supporting cast as opposed to, say, Thrall?

Hell, the Forsaken, Sylvanas' people, barely show up in these stories other than the non rotting, still sexy, Darkfallen characters. I can think of exactly one Sylvaina story that even insinuated that Jaina had anything of a rapport with Apothecary Faranell. And holy fuck, the number of fics that try and scapegoat Nathanos as Sylvanas' enabler and have him killed off because of it. They are so quick to separate Sylvanas from one of her only canonical sources of emotional support.

Speaking of the Purge, think of how many times in a Sylvaina Sylvanas is raked over the coals for Teldrassil by all parties, but then proceed to never bring up the Purge. Ever. They don't even account for the idea that Sylvanas might take issue with even dating someone with so much Sin'dorei blood on their hands. The blood of the people she fought and died to defend. Killed by the Lich King's former boo. That doesn't account into their writing at all because they either didn't know the Purge even happened before writing, or just decided it wasn't important because Jaina didn't suffer consequences for it.

These trends are unfortunately prevalent in this ship, but that just makes the stories that don't do this stand out a lot more. There are Sylvaina stories with a healthy balance of Horde and Alliance characters, don't forget that Sylvanas rules over the Forsaken, and treat her and Jaina's actions equally. And they're some of the best stories this ship has ever seen.

I just wish we got more of them.

[alteredphoenix]

Been thinking about how I’d go about writing one of those arranged/political marriage AUs that are really popular on WoW AO3. It’s not the first time it’s crossed my mind, even though I’m not particularly well-versed in how such a thing works beyond “get these two people together regardless as to whether or not they actually feel something for each other so we have some form of unity and peace and quiet while we try to solve our problems in the background and/or put them on the backburner and forget they’re happening.”

This being me, though, I’d have to approach from a more...grounded POV, because both factions and everyone in them has committed war crimes to some degree (Anduin hasn’t quite gotten to that point yet, but he’s young, he has plenty of time to fuck up more), so naturally by having each group sit down at a table in Stormwind and Orgrimmar and discussing how viable pairing Anduin and Sylvanas would be, or a leader of the Alliance - let’s go with Jaina, since she’s the go-to for this sort of thing - with a leader of the Horde - Sylvanas is the go-to because she’s the central female figurehead in the Horde, but for this let’s choose, say, Baine (since he’s just as close to Jaina and Mayla hasn’t bothered to make a move on him yet, and Lor’themar and Thalyssra are off the market for the foreseeable future), or if we’re doing same-sex pairings maybe a minor leader such as Gey’arah (if you want to make her see the draenei/lightforged aren’t the same ones that glassed Draenor) or Liadrin (if you want to make Light-Void harmony as a possible focal point for marriage of convenience).

They sound like good ideas, don’t they? Until you remember everything everyone has done to each other, and what they will do to each other. I can guarantee you practically all but a few people on both sides will either laugh their asses off or grouse and proclaim, altogether, “This is a stupid fucking idea. There’s too much bad blood, Anduin is practically a kid wearing a crown too big for his head, Jaina and Vereesa still haven’t answered for the Purge of Dalaran, Gallywix is probably going to take bets no matter who we choose, half our races can’t reproduce with humans and elves, and who the hell is going to want to bang Sylvanas with ALL THAT BAGGAGE while keeping a seaforium-strong leash on Nathanos?”

Needless to say, nothing gets done about it. The talks fall through and life goes on, rebuilding from the fallout of the Burning Legion’s invasion. Everyone tries to forget the talks ever happened.

Then Teldrassil goes up like a Roman candle, and all that goes out the window. But hey, at least Genn can breathe a sigh of relief now. Sylvanas might be on the run, but all that Scarlet Crusade propaganda spreading blasphemy about his king consummating with in an undead war criminal? Burn that shit to ashes and Maw take them.

[saintheartwing]

Evidently Mikaila is a Sylvanas Stan Who Can’t Take Criticism Too

So it’s not just Lily Orchard, evidently. I had made a questioning reply to this: https://ms-mikail.tumblr.com/post/621031039321735168/sylvaina-drabble 

I didn’t know when Sylvanas and Jaina would even have time to talk. Also, hadn’t Sylvanas tried to kill Jaina and her friends multiple times? And been kinda slimy about it too? 

So what was her response to this fairly reasonable question that can be boiled down to questioning the OOCness of it all? Because this, to me, came across as weird. I feel the same way about stories where Zim is randomly sexually complimenting Dib. Like, “wow, THIS came right outta nowhere”. 

So what did she say?

“Sylvanas and Jaina have barely said two words to each other throughout the entirety of Wow. Sylvaina is a ship that has no bearing on canon and is just a not so guilty pleasure of mine. I asked for feedback, not for someone to be a pedandic stickler”.

So her response to me giving feedback was to just insult me and dismiss the feedback. Now, if it had JUST been her saying “it’s just a guilty pleasure of mine” I woulda been fine, but she had to insult me by calling me a pedantic stickler, and then blocked me. 

Why are both of these people incapable of accepting ANY criticism of Sylvanas, no matter how minor? It’s all just dismissed, and the people who bring it up just get insulted and straw-manned or the like and then childishly blocked. 

And I know some people might go ‘Well you’re being kind of childish too by bringing all this up in a public post”. Sure. But I’m admitting this freely. I AM being a little childish. I’d rather own up to that and speak my mind than just stay silent and stew and be pissy. Better to just get something like this off your chest and have it out in the open. It’s more honest. 

UPDATE: I’m aware that ZADR is creepy for another reason, Zim being SUPER older than Dib. Yeah, that’s another reason why I view it as gross. I guess it’s just the whole “Enemies on DRASTICALLY different sides suddenly being all cute despite the fact one has been consistently trying to kill the other” thing I focused on.