Why Percabeth Isn’t a Good Ship (Sorry 2x)

I’m definitely getting cancelled- 

1. Annabeth is physically abusive. The fandom makes this point seem controversial and debatable, but it’s really not. The definition of abuse is hitting someone. Annabeth hit Percy. Therefore, Annabeth abused Percy. Is that really that hard to understand? Annabeth hit Percy for the first time in The Titan’s Curse when she, Percy, and Thalia were looking for the di Angelo siblings. She punched him in the gut when he asked her who he should ask to dance with him. Annabeth knows that Percy can be oblivious at times...but punishes him when it benefits her? The second time was in The Mark of Athena, when she judo-flipped him because she missed him. That’s...what?? Usually when people are worried about someone else, they hug or kiss them, not flip them over their shoulder. And yes Annabeth kissed him first, but the judo-flip was completely unnecessary. Annabeth punished Percy for ‘leaving’ her despite him being kidnapped and his memory wiped. And everyone’s like ‘But Percy didn’t feel any pain!!11!!1!’ The chapter wasn’t in his point of view, so that claim is a guess. Just cause he didn’t say ‘Ow’ doesn’t mean he wasn’t in pain. Also- Annabeth slammed him on a stone pavement on his back. That definitely hurts, even if Percy is a demigod, physically strong, and has gotten hurt a lot. There’s a difference between ‘playful hitting’ and actually hurting someone. Yes they trained a lot, but this isn’t training. This is Annabeth punishing Percy for being traumatized with yet another life-threatening quest and being kidnapped. I don’t remember Percy judo-flipping Annabeth after he saw her again when she got kidnapped in TTC. Besides, the Romans were about to take out their weapons when they saw Annabeth attack Percy, so if all of them thought it was an attack...it was most likely an attack. Even Annabeth said herself “I only attack my boyfriend like that”. The thing is, if it was Percy who flipped Annabeth over his shoulder and slammed her on her back or punched her in the gut, all the fans immediately would’ve freaked out and cancelled him, calling him a horrible and abusive boyfriend, but because it’s the girl hitting the guy, it’s fine apparently. Nothing wrong with it, right? And then Riordan (and the fandom) had the audacity to romanticize that abuse. Abuse isn’t a sweet, romantic gesture. Stop making it seem like it is. That’s disgusting. 

2. Annabeth is also verbally abusive and toxic. Annabeth canonically lowered Percy’s self-esteem, constantly insulted him and his intelligence despite knowing he was insecure about it and always getting kicked out of schools and getting bad grades (even with her so-called ‘endearing’ name for him ‘Seaweed Brain’), and the overall idea of Percabeth is a super smart, pretty girl making a guy with below average intelligence feel insecure about himself. Percy’s self-esteem has plummeted since he met Annabeth and her behavior is never called out or even noticed, which implies some manipulation going on. Annabeth is shown to be extremely capable of manipulating her enemies and anyone else she pleases, and there are quite a few signs she’s using it against Percy (his feelings of obligation, fear, and guilt of and over her, questioning himself, having strings attached, always only thinking of her and no one else in his life, etc.), especially since Percy begins to gradually stop noticing Annabeth’s wrong and toxic behavior as the story progresses. 

3. Annabeth only likes Percy cause he’s the chosen one. Annabeth only hung around Percy since The Lightning Thief cause she thought he was ‘the one’ and so she could finally go on a quest. She literally used Percy to go out to the mortal world and ‘prove herself’ cause really, all she cares about is glory, which is shown multiple times throughout the series with all her pride and ambitions. Plus the fact that Chiron made Annabeth swear on the River Styx that she would keep Percy from danger is a pretty clear sign she didn’t stick around him just cause she wanted to, but because she felt obligated to and cause it would benefit her. Take all of this and it’s kind of obvious Annabeth only hung around Percy cause he was the chosen one of the prophecy, a son of one of the Big Three, and was destined to go on multiple quests and play a big part in the mythological world, which is what she always wanted since book one.

4. It was forced. Since the beginning of book one, it was so obvious that Percy and Annabeth were going to get together that their relationship ended up being boring, dull, and flat. Riordan made it so obvious they were going to be a couple that nothing that happened to their relationship really mattered, cause everyone knew it would work out in the end (which is probably why everyone *wrongly* hated on Rachel) so what happened in between didn’t matter. Their relationship was the typical ‘male lead and female lead’, ‘bad boy trouble-maker skater and nerdy good girl’ power couple that was way too clear. And Riordan made it worse by pushing their relationship and shoving it into the readers’ faces way too much. In MoA Annabeth states that she’s always had a crush on Percy (since they were twelve) which immediately rips all the development their relationship (which was supposedly ‘friends to lovers’, but not anymore) had away. Riordan made up a bunch of honestly dumb scenarios that were legit cringe to make Percabeth seem like ‘OTP’ that really didn’t make sense.

5. It ruined their characters. Percy and Annabeth would’ve been way better off as just friends. After they got together in HoO, all their personality and everything else that made them independent was destroyed to make room for more ‘Percabeth’. All of Annabeth’s skills, bravery, intelligence, pride, ferocity, judgmentalism, and all the other traits and flaws that made her a well-written character were never utilized or even mentioned. All she thought about was Percy, and the same goes for him. His loyalty, sarcasm, humor, obliviousness, etc. disappeared to make room for arrogant Annabeth fanboy. In PJO, they were amazingly well-written and great role models for younger readers (especially Annabeth), but in HoO their characters were exclusively ‘Annabeth’s boyfriend’ and ‘Percy’s girlfriend’. Their characters were completely dependent on each other, and they were way better off as just friends. 

6. Annabeth is way too possessive. And creepy. It’s fine and honestly normal for people to get jealous when another person likes someone they do, but Annabeth’s jealousy was downright creepy. Not only did she not know if her feelings for Percy were reciprocated or not, but she also didn’t know if Percy and Rachel liked each other, either. The very first time she met Rachel she immediately hated her. That’s not ‘I’m jealous cause this girl likes the guy I do’, that’s ‘I’m jealous cause the guy I like has another female friend’. She had no reason to believe that Rachel and Percy liked each other and has no say in who they can like, either. She thought that she and Percy absolutely had to be in a relationship and that he couldn’t even have friends with different genitals than him. And remember when Annabeth literally stalked Percy in The Sea of Monsters? Like when she creeped by his window, constantly watched him, and kept tabs on him just cause she ‘couldn’t find the right time’ to tell him something cause he was ‘never alone’ despite him being alone multiple times and despite the fact that she literally could’ve just knocked on his door like a normal person instead of creeping around his cabin and staring at him through the windows? Again- switch the roles. If it was Percy who was stalking Annabeth, everyone would’ve immediately called him a creep. If- according to Tumblr and almost everyone who read Twilight- Edward is a creep for stalking Bella, then Annabeth is a creep for stalking Percy. 

7. It’s mostly fan love. Honestly, the fandom is the only thing that fuels Percabeth. Riordan just destroys it. He shoved it down the readers’ throats, forced it way too much with really dumb and honestly unrealistic scenarios, and made it abusive and toxic. On its own, Percabeth freaking sucks. The fandom’s version of Percabeth is 1000x better than whatever the hell Riordan was doing, but even that version is toxic. Like, I’ve seen way too many jokes about Annabeth hitting Percy (as if abuse is hilarious and amazing meme fuel and not an extremely sensitive topic that triggers multiple people who actually went through it). Half the time, the fandom fixes Percabeth and the other half of the time they over-glorify and ruin it. The fandom over exaggerates and over glorifies it way too much. It’s not that great of a relationship, to be honest. Most of y’all only like it in the first place cause Riordan made it canon.

8. It was cringey. Like I said above, Riordan wrote some really dumb scenes for Percabeth. I mean- the matching gray streaks in their hair despite Atlas and Artemis not getting any? Percy’s tie to the mortal world while bathing in the River Styx being Annabeth and not his mom, Grover, etc.? Percy only remembering Annabeth, the girl he’s only known for four years and not his mom, the only woman who actually cared for and took care of him or Grover, his best friend who protected and continuously cared about him? Percy turning down immortality only for Annabeth and not even bothering to mention the pain of leaving behind his life, friends, family, memories, etc. behind if he accepted it? The romanticized judo-flip? The whole ‘dark-haired rebellious bad boy/nerdy blonde good girl who can be bad’ trope? Even the boring predictability of Percabeth is cringe. 

9. It’s a bad influence on younger readers. Basically the lesson of Percabeth is ‘Once you get a love interest nothing else in your life matters’. Besides that one single scene that took like three lines in The Son of Neptune, Percy never even thought of his own mom, nor did he think about any of his friends or passed allies like his dad, Rachel, Grover, Paul, Silena, Luke, Ethan, Bob/Iapetus, Tyson, Calypso, Charles, Michael (whose death he accidentally caused), Bianca, Zoë, etc. Even when in Tartarus with the curse of the Arai being forced to remember all the people he forgot and feeling guilty about abandoning Bob and Calypso, all he thought about was Annabeth. Even when faced with the man who broke the heart of the girl who sacrificed herself for him, Percy didn’t even think of her, only his jealousy of Jason. Same thing with Annabeth. She never thought about her mom, Luke, Thalia, her step-mom or step-brothers, etc. It was all about Percy. Cause yes, Riordan, that’s exactly the lesson you should teach your younger readers- forget everyone you ever knew the moment you get a partner. Besides that, it also teaches readers that being rude to people who like the same person as you is completely okay cause no one will care and once you start being rude, bitter, and possessive you’ll get exactly what you want (that’s literally what happened, with Annabeth and with Calypso, too). He also teaches that after you get a partner, everything that makes you you will disappear and you’ll be completely dependent on them and nothing in your life will matter, even your own independent life and personality. 

10. The fandom tries to excuse and explain Annabeth’s behavior??? What??? Since when does explaining and excusing hitting people put you in the right again? And the excuses aren’t even good, too! Percabeth fans use-  Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions. Annabeth really loved Percy. It was only one time. Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him. Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him. Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions. ??? Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions- Annabeth was seventeen years old, the daughter of the wisdom goddess, and is supposedly the smartest character in the series who is shown to be extremely good at reading people and their emotions. And y’all are really trying to say she doesn’t know how to deal with her emotions?  Annabeth really loved Percy- SO? A mother might really love her child, does that excuse her for hitting them for dumb reasons? It was only one time- actually, it was twice, and so what? If someone was slapped across the face ‘only one time’, does that mean they weren’t abused? ‘Abuse’ doesn’t mean ‘hit constantly’, it means ‘hit’. If someone was hit, they were abused. Is that really not a known fact in this fandom? Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him- last time I checked, people didn’t hit others when they were worried about them. If I was worried that my friend was going to get hurt, I wouldn’t hurt them myself. That literally makes no sense. And again- Percy didn’t leave Annabeth. He was kidnapped. Do y’all not know the definition of that, either? Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him- yes, cause that’s why she decided to flip him over her shoulder, slam him on a stone pavement on his back, and punish him for ‘leaving her’.  Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions- Annabeth??? the daughter of the wisdom goddess??? not knowing what she’s doing??? huh??? I mean, would any of you really, legitimately try to use any of these dumb excuses to excuse a man from hitting his wife? Hopefully not. And if you did, you would immediately get hated on and legit cancelled. So what makes this any different? Also- I see the excuse ‘Annabeth didn’t know Percy lost his Achilles Heel and thought he was still invincible’. Under different circumstances I’d accept that, but Annabeth knew that Percy’s Achilles Heel was on the small of his back...BUT SHE SLAMMED HIM ON HIS BACK. If Percy hadn’t lost the Achilles Heel, Annabeth literally would’ve killed him. Abusive enough for y’all? Or is attempted murder excusable and still ‘OTP’? 

11. They had no chemistry whatsoever. Was I the only one who felt...absolutely no chemistry between Percy and Annabeth? Like some of their moments were cute, their friendship was really good, and they had a lot of potential, but they didn’t feel right for each other. Remember- opposites don’t attract (they just argue, and no one has ‘another half’ that needs to ‘complete them’, everyone is their own person), they cancel each other out. I mean, Reyna and Annabeth had more chemistry in that one chapter of the New Rome tour in MoA than Percy and Annabeth had in 12+ books. They’re just...not right for each other, I guess. 

I’m definitely getting cancelled-

Edit 2: Sorry if I offended anyone with that last note. Just wanted to let y’all know that I am not here to start any drama, hurt anyone, or disrespect any Percabeth shippers. I respect your opinions 100% and only ask you do the same for me. Like I literally only wrote this at 12 am when I was bored and had nothing else to do and couldn’t sleep (same goes for pretty much everything else I write about PJ). Besides, why argue and start drama over dumb stuff like that when we can just find something we agree on? Don’t like Piper McLean? Let’s talk about that. Think Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano is a queen? Let’s talk about that. Think Nico di Angelo is freaking amazing? Let’s talk about that. Think Theyna would be adorable? Let’s talk about that. Want someone to vent to about writer’s block? Why the hell not? Want random writing advice and tips for writer’s block? Sure, I got plenty. Instead of arguing and starting beef over trivial fictional ships. 

coffee shop AU, enemies to lovers, fake dating, high school AU, hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, soulmates, time loop 🤔🤨🤔

(In response to this)

OOOO ooo ooo ooo this is many!! :D

But okay letsgo >:3

Coffee shop AU: Eh, C. Coffee shop AUs feel like the least interesting kind of domestic AU to me for some reason. Like, I won't AVOID them? But I feel like the author needs to really try to make it great. On its own, it falls a bit flat. Maybe because I don't tend to go to coffee shops myself, so it's not relatable...? Also whenever I do, I don't talk to the person working there. Like, they're doing their job, I don't want to bother them. Do most people have conversations with their baristas? idk maybe it's just because I'm not social. Either way, I think it's ok. A bit bland unless the author does something special with it.

Enemies to lovers: Honestly? D. I do not care for it at all. I like the fluffy stuff! Enemies to FRIENDS to lovers, I could get behind, but you CANNOT skip the intermediary step there. Otherwise, it's like, what is the relationship even based on, y'know? If they just flip from hating each other to being all lovey-dovey. Kismesisitude and non-hs relationships like it are another thing, and I do really like that, but only when it's done right, and it usually isn't. IT'S ABOUT THE MUTUAL TRUST AND ADMIRATION OKAY!! NOT THE RANDOM OUT OF THE BLUE LOVEY-DOVEY STUFF >:0

Fake dating: B! I can get behind it. It really allows for some great character interaction opportunities, all based around the premise of what you show to the world vs. what you actually feel, and how those feed into each other (which is a great hook). You get that good good private relationship and public relationship dynamic, until they inevitably collide!! Lots of fluff or hurt/comfort opportunity there as well. I don't tend to read a lot of it, but whenever I see it for characters I care about, it can be nice.

HIgh school AU: C. My interest in high school AUs plummeted after leaving high school, surprisingly enough. They're okay, to be sure, but the usual fare relies on a kind of rose-tinted glasses view of high school that I can't imagine anyone being able to slip into after going through it themself. It really depends on the fandom, though; some sets of characters work really well put into that kind of a structured social ecosystem, but for others, it just kind of feels limiting.

Hurt/Comfort: YESSSS YES YES SOLID A NO QUESTION. My drug of choice!! THIS is where the heart of fandom lies, in my humble opinion. It's alllll about putting characters in bad situations, and seeing the other characters help them out, be it physically or emotionally! Mostly because, while that kind of thing is central to the construction of any kind of story, most canons don't spend much time exploring the aftermath of the hurt they inflict. It would take up too much time. BUT it's exactly that aftermath that holds the deepest depths of the characters' emotions!! As fandomgoers, then, it is our duty, nay, PRIVILEGE to uncover those depths via exploring that hurt in the ways the original author didn't! And also sometimes creating new hurts in order to get to that same place of vulnerability, that works too. The best fandom trope, either way.

Hurt/No Comfort: Ooooh this can be great too. Another A. While the purpose of Hurt/Comfort is to use the characters' vulnerabilities to experience catharsis, Hurt/No Comfort (or angst? whump? all names for similar things) is all about a different kind of catharsis. It's to say, "what if the worst happened? what then?", and exploring that for a while, since the characters' true depths always come out the clearest in their darkest hour; then, you can come back from that, appreciate the fact that the worst HASN'T come to pass, and also appreciate the characters in a new, more meaningful light. When you're in the mood for it, that's the gooood shit.

Soulmates: F. Straight up. This is probably my most unpopular fandom opinion, but I hate soulmate AUs. It takes away all the interesting parts of a ship, waters it down into uninteresting, out of character, amatonormative nonsense, and flavors it all with shallow worldbuilding that falls apart into dystopia if you think about it for more than two seconds. Like... I understand WHY people like it. If you just want an excuse for your favorite characters to have a meaningful-feeling, adorable meet-cute, okay! Yeah, it allows for that. But if you care about ANYTHING deeper, soulmate AUs destroy that by its very premise. They don't allow for depth, because when you try to take the concept deeper, you start running into essential problems; things like "what if they ever have an argument? its not like they can ever split up. what kind of pressures might that inherent fact put on their relationship?" or "if these two characters MET knowing that they would be romantic partners, wouldn't that completely change their relationship? would their dynamic even be close to what drew me to them in the first place?" or "wouldn't a world where everyone spends their lives looking for their "soulmate", before meeting them and then not being able to leave that person no matter what happens, be fucking terrible? that sounds like a BREEDING GROUND for abuse." Not to mention that, as an arospec person myself, the idea of "everyone has one person who is made for them, who completes them" just feels... slimy. I can't enjoy it. No shade to people who do, obviously, but it makes me VERY uncomfortable. I have a whole big rant about soulmate AUs that I've touched on the basic points of here but I won't go into it any more than this, because hoo boy, this is already getting pretty long.

Time Loop: AAAAA YES I LOVE TIME LOOPS!!!! A, for sure. It's the PERFECT hurt/comfort and/or angst setup, with a heavy focus on character development. How will the character first react to being in a loop? What do they do? How do they feel? All with that slow rise in desperation, as their personal problems just keep compounding and compounding with the knowledge that, in order for anything to change, THEY have to be the one to do it.... aaaaa its such a good scenario!!! GUARANTEED to bring out the most juicy parts of the character, I love it.

And noooow we are done!! That was very long. But thank you so much for asking, I have so many thoughts all the time lol :P

If Morrigan taught Warden how to perform Dark Ritual, would it be possible for female Warden to get pregnant with their LI (even if it was another Warden)? Or is the Old God's soul nescessary to keep the baby alive and such Ritual wouldn't work in the end?

Hi Nonnie! The answer is under a cut for length and sensitivity purposes. 

Huh, interesting question. Do you mean like instead of Morrigan performing it with the male Hero, Alistair or Loghain before the battle so that someone didn’t have to make the Ultimate Sacrifice, could the female Hero instead be the one to perform it with her (Scenario A)? Or do you mean like, in normal everyday circumstances where nobody’s life is at stake, could the female Hero perform it with their LI as a way of overcoming the effects of the Taint on fertility and so be able to have biological children together that way (Scenario B)?

Hard to say I think! The DR wasn’t totally explained and was left quite vague. We don’t really know all that much about it. It’s ancient and mysterious. A couple things:

The DR is old magic from before the Circles of Magi were ever created. Morrigan says some would call it blood magic. If it’s possible for Morrigan to teach others how to perform it, I’d guess that as it’s magic she would only be able to teach it to Amell and Surana. My first assumption would be that it’s not possible for mundanes to carry out the ritual, therefore the pool of which female Heroes would be capable of hypothetically performing the ritual with their non-Morrigan LI is limited.

The methodology of the ritual Morrigan learned from Flemeth. This causes me to wonder if only powerful mages would be able to carry it out. I also wonder about whether there’s some requirement that said mage is ‘special’ somehow, for lack of a better term, like would they need to have [x] trait or [y] background? Would they need to have been brought up as Morrigan was learning non-Circle magic arts from an ancient being, have had that training to have the ability? Would they need to be of Flemeth’s bloodline even? Kieran’s line “Mother is the inheritor, she who awaits the next age” I feel has several meanings. It’s about Morrigan’s general wish to come into possession of and preserve the magics and powers of old, and it’s about how Flemythal had intended to gift Morrigan her soul, had she been willing. It’s foreshadowing that Morrigan may one day drink from the Well and receive all that it entails, and it’s a vaaague asf allusion to the general future of Thedas (packaged with a meta ‘wink nudge, get it, AGE?’ card lol) as a whole in the same kinda vague manner that epic lines like “Change is coming to the world” and “The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss” are [~oohhh dramatic ominous noises~, y’know?]. It also brings to mind Morrigan’s DAO plot-arc of having been sent along with the Hero and Alistair in the first place in order to try to ‘inherit’ (poetic use of the word here) Urthemiel’s soul. The inheritor, “This is what I was meant to do”.. sounds a bit specific and predestined-ish. Could all mages who attempt the DR in Morrigan’s place manage to inherit the soul or successfully complete the rite, or are there some special requirements? This is unknown and purely just me speculating about all possibilities.

It was once written in that the female Hero (any female Hero) could be the one to perform the DR with Morrigan and the OGB would still be conceived. This was going to be possible via magic, but ultimately the writers scrapped this idea before the game shipped. So with reference to Scenario A, I don’t see why you couldn’t write/headcanon that the female Hero performed the DR with Morrigan and that as a result Morrigan became pregnant. It’s clearly something the writers were thinking about having be a thing once upon a time, and in this setting we have all kinds of powerful magics that we don’t question, so why not handwave this if you want to.

You could take into account Grey Warden fertility. The Taint decreases a Warden’s fertility and most can only conceive prior to the Joining. On occasion a Warden and a non-Warden can conceive, so you could have, for example, the female Hero and Zevran, say, settling down and having children in the usual manner after the Blight or whatever, albeit probably with some difficulty conceiving and it being a rare/notable thing if they managed to. The sooner they began the better their chances though, probably; Morrigan’s line about Riordan being unsuitable as a candidate because she needs a Warden who hasn’t been tainted for too long otherwise it wouldn’t work was said in reference to the DR, but from the sound of it it seems to imply that the longer a Warden has been tainted for, the lower their already low chances of conceiving are, and that after some timepoint it drops off completely and permanently and is no longer possible at all. Alistair is able to father Kieran about 1.5 years after going through the Joining, and Fiona was able to conceive Alistair with Maric about 1 year after being recruited, so we know it’s possible in the first 1.5 years at least.

Canonically as far as anyone [in-universe] knows, under normal circumstances two Grey Wardens can’t have children together naturally and it’s never happened. On this DG once wrote “just because it's never happened doesn't mean it never could, I suppose. There are always exceptions. [...] So if you involve some mysterious [magic McGuffin in the headcanons/fanfic of the player he was talking to in this exchange]... why not? [...] Unnaturally is an entirely different story.” It’s up to you whether you take on-board or discard this particular piece of canon that they can’t. I stick to it personally, but I can see why some Queen Cousland players, for example, would want their Heroes to be able to have biological children with Alistair and so opt to discard this or write around it.

Now, when a Warden does conceive a child with a non-Warden, the child doesn’t bear the Taint, like the Taint isn’t passed on. So the child of a Warden and a non-Warden conceived in regular non-DR circumstances isn’t in danger from getting or dying from the Taint or anything.

But, something about the way the DR works means that the resulting child would bear the Taint initially. The purpose of the DR was to make an embryonic beacon that the soul of the slain Archdemon would seek out. Some part of the DR ensures the Taint is passed on, because if the embryo wasn’t Tainted it wouldn’t be attractive to the soul and the soul wouldn’t go into it. However, Morrigan’s dialogue about how Kieran won’t be a darkspawn, how she seeks the soul free of the dark forces that corrupted it, and how the child as a result of the ritual will represent freedom for the soul and a chance for it to be reborn apart from the Taint implies that after the soul joins with the embryo, the Taint is cleansed from both. It’s the absorbing of the soul that cleanses the embryo of the Taint. And so, the presence of the Old God’s soul in the equation is necessary for the embryo of a Dark Ritual conception to be cleansed and born free of the Taint. With no Old God soul, you’d end up with a child which has the Taint and is therefore subject to what that can entail, like possible sickness or being linked to the darkspawn hivemind like a Warden or, presumably, eventually the ghoul-like corruption and premature death. I don’t know that any such embryo would even make it to term, really. So in Scenario B, I don’t think it would work like this unfortunately.

Hope this made sense, helped some and was a bit of food for thought. :)

(An aside: Lore discrepancy - Why can two Wardens not conceive together, but eventually after a Blight “Blighted animals will begin to breed again, giving birth to non-mutant [untainted] offspring”? That sounds like it’s saying a Blighted animal could breed with a Blighted animal successfully.)

Who wants a Halloween Magic Anon event?

More specifically: who wants their muses to have to face down (an illusion of) whatever it is they most fear?

That’s what I thought.

So what’s the event?

On Halloween, a bunch of random Phobia shields will be dropped on a bunch of random Cybertronian-populated areas across a bunch of random universes. Phobia shields were introduced in Spotlight: Hoist as an invention by the Galactic Council to drive off Cybertronians from worlds they haven’t yet invaded.

They function by latching onto a single conscious Cybertronian’s brain, reading it to find their worst fear, and creating a physical manifestation of the fear—think holomatter, although we don’t know if the shield actually uses holomatter or some similar technology. If that Cybertronian passes out, then the Phobia shield latches onto another nearby Cybertronian and starts generating their greatest fear instead. So if your greatest fear is fighting Megatron, suddenly there’s a solid Megatron charging at you with fusion cannon powering up. Make your character face their greatest fear!

When is it happening?

Halloween day! The magic anons will be sent out the day before on the 30th, to be activated on the next day. If you want to activate it as soon as you get it, or save it for a few days before you activate it, you’re free to do so. There’s no overarching plot that depends on everyone doing it at the exact same time.

How can I participate?

We’ll be sending out magic anons to people who are interested on Halloween. Like this post, reblog it, or send a reply, an ask, or a DM to indicate that you want to get the anon. If you find out late about the event and want to get in on it, feel free to copy/paste the magic anon and send it to yourself. You’re also free to send it to any of your buddies you want to haul into terrifying hologram hell with you. 

How long does the event last?

It’s an open-ended event; the magic anons will be sent out on Halloween, but your threads and involvement with the event will last however long it takes you to find and destroy your Phobia shield. If you want to go on a three-month-long epic quest with eight other muns to find and destroy a dozen well-hidden and well-guarded Phobia shields planted at strategic coordinates across Cybertron, you can. If you want to spend two hours goofing around with your muse climbing on a table screaming because their room is filled with a hundred tiny Airachnids and then declare the Phobia shield’s battery burned out and everything is back to normal, you can do that too. There’s no rules here; once you get the magic anon, you get to decide how much or little you want to engage with it.

Under the cut I’ve put more info about fear shields based on what we’ve seen in canon.

Please reblog to signal boost if you’re interested in participating!

What do the shields look like?

We don’t know what Phobia shields look like, so I’ve arbitrarily decided they look like this, stand about shoulder-high to an average carformer, and probably aren’t all that hard to destroy if you find one. The hard part is 1) realizing that you’ve got a Phobia shield latched on to you and aren’t actually getting stalked by a swarm of rusting zombies, and 2) figuring out where it’s located so you can destroy it. The Phobia shield will probably be somewhere within a few miles of the character it’s latched on to.

What kind of things do they generate?

These are the examples we’ve seen of Phobia shield-generated illusions from canon:

- Tarn, complete with working double fusion cannons, courtesy of Sunstreaker’s fears—although the fusion cannon blasts didn’t appear to do a lot of damage. It’s likely that any illusory heavy weaponry generated by a Phobia shield will look just as terrifying as your character can imagine, but not actually be that deadly unless the illusion gets in a lucky shot. - A combiner of Shockwave, Megatron, Overlord, and Sixshot, courtesy of Swerve’s fears, capable of kicking Hoist and knocking him down. - Metroplex, courtesy of Bob’s fears. It was capable of stepping on and crushing a ship. - Hoist’s biggest fear is being alone. The phobia shield obliged by somehow hiding the unconscious Cybertronians around him from his sight.

So, anything that can be physically generated—from objects, to people, to major landscape alterations that conceal the actual landscape/people—is fair game. Weaponfire is also a possibility. None of the illusions are seen talking or making any other sounds, so it’s unlikely that that’s an option, but if it’d work really well for your character’s fears then go for it!

What kind of things can’t they generate?

It’s very likely that, if a thing isn’t an actual physical object, the Phobia shield can’t generate it. It can’t generate a telekinetic bot that’s actually capable of levitating things with their mind. If it generates Glitch, he can’t make objects malfunction just by touching them. If it generates Trailcutter, he probably can’t generate forcefields (although he might be able to generate a solid translucent bubble in the shape and color of a forcefield). If it generates Brainstorm’s briefcase, it won’t actually be capable of time travel. Think of the things it generates as movie props.

How do they work?

When the target of the Phobia shield is knocked out, the illusion visibly fades away to nothing, and then another target is immediately chosen and latched on to. It appears that the shield won’t move on to a new target until its current one passes out.

Ships won’t detect life signs from the illusions; so while the illusions are designed to fool Cybertronian senses (and are solid, so can do real damage), they’re not similarly designed to fool the equipment around Cybertronians.

Considering that the size of the threats consistently escalated (from Tarn, to a four-bot combiner, to Metroplex) before plummeting to nothing (Hoist’s empty void), it’s likely that the Phobia shields can intelligently choose which person’s fears to latch onto in a way that maximizes the amount of fear that can be generated while minimizing the amount of physical matter the shield has to generate, so the fears will get progressively bigger and bigger as it moves through targets, and only at the end resort to “less scary” fears. (But if that doesn’t work with the plot you want to do, feel free to ignore it! It’s theorization, not confirmed canon.)

What if my character has an abstract fear, like failure or abandonment?

Hoist had a pretty abstract fear—loneliness—and the Phobia shield found a way to make a physical representation of that. Get creative! If your character’s greatest fear is being abandoned by their loved ones, maybe the Phobia shield generates illusions of their loved ones that give them the cold shoulder and try to get away from them. If your character’s greatest fear is disease, maybe it makes fake rust appear on their armor. If your character’s greatest fear is damnation, maybe the shield makes a very judgmental-looking Primus that gives them a thumbs down.

Who’s affected by the shields?

The Phobia shields were designed specifically to drive Cybertronians away from planets the Galactic Council wanted to protect. They work on Insecticons too, so presumably any person or creature from Cybertron can be affected by the shields. Since the shields were made to protect aliens from Cybertronians, they probably don’t work on aliens; an alien would still see and could be injured by the shield’s illusions, but the shield wouldn’t latch onto an alien’s brain or generate illusions based on their fears.

I don’t want the shield to affect MY character, but I’ve got some NPCs on my blog that the shield could affect and my character would have to deal with it...

Once you get the magic anon, it’s your shield to do with as you please. It’s all fair game.

One of the rules about how the shield works prevents me from doing something I think would be interesting, can I change it up a little?

Yeah sure, you got a shield that’s malfunctioning and/or custom altered and it operates a little differently from everyone else’s.

Again, the event is on Halloween, the magic anons are sent out October 30, and you can keep going with it as long as you want to keep playing. Like/reblog/reply or send an ask/DM to say you want to receive a magic anon. Please reblog to signal boost if you’re interested!

Totally-canon-non-essential-one-shot ft. Bradley x Guinevere

I’ve been impressively non-productive lately. Done very little writing or work. And I bought a new notebook at Target’s back-to-school section, so I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a totally useless purchase.

So have a mostly un-edited, totally-canon-non-essential-one-shot featuring our favorite qpr marriage, Bradley x Guinevere. 

He found Guinevere in the gardens.

It was where they’d gone during that first week, when they’d first been getting to know one another. He hadn’t known what to expect in those early days. The Paragon of Imivaria hadbeen a mysterious figure at the time, a foreign political dignitary who he’d never met, but whom he was still expected to marry. It had been hard, meeting her for the first time and knowing that the shadow of their engagement was lurking in both of their minds.

That hadn’t been the only thing lurking, either. An escort was a must during those early days, most notably the Paragon’s guard, Falmere. The flowers had been a decent distraction from the awkwardness of their first meeting, and he’d known he would find her in the gardens again today. She had an uncommon love of the gardens; she liked to spend time among the blossoms that couldn’t grow in her home country.

Bradley found Guinevere perched on a bench and thoroughly absorbed in a heavy tome. Falmere stood in his customary place, just behind the Paragon. He caught Bradley’s eye, offering the tiniest nod of his head in acknowledgement of his presence. No unnecessary bowing and scraping from this man, and Bradley preferred it that way. It saved time.

Clearing his throat, he stopped just before her and waited. Guinevere didn’t even acknowledge him until she had reached a point in her book where she could stop. Then she rested a hand on the page and looked up at him, a smile playing about her lips. Once he had her attention, he had all of it, and he suddenly found himself shaking. His throat had gone dry. He cleared it again, trying to remember even the tiniest piece of the eloquent speech he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. It had all disappeared in the brilliance of her smile.

“Bradley.” She tipped her head at him, both eyebrows coming up in question. “How kind of you to join me! Have you come to read to me again?” Her eyes twinkled at him, but all he could see was the glint of the piercing in her bottom lip.

“Ah, no.” His words came out rough, and he cleared his throat again, feeling like he’d swallowed a frog. His words had never failed him before now. He was a Prince, expected to speak publically, to stand before crowds and always have the right words to say.

But Guinevere was staring at him, and her guard behind her, and he couldn’t find his words.

He was just glad they were alone, only the three of them present to witness his fumbling. “I have something of great important to discuss with you.” He finally manage to make something approximating comprehensive words. “If now is a good time for you, of course.”

Falmere made a choking sound that might have been him smothering a laugh. Shooting a quick glance his in direction, Bradley was just in time to catch the guard passing his hand over his mouth. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw amusement in Falmere’s face. He quickly glanced away again, but not before Falmere had quirked one eyebrow at him.

When he looked back into Guinevere’s face, he saw only casual interest. His heart plummeted.

“Of course. What is it?”

Now the words were coming. The speech he’d prepared was coming back to him, rushing back into his brain like it was being chased by wolves. “When I first learned of the alliance my father intended for my country and yours, I began researching at once. I knew of Imivaria from my lessons as a boy, of course, but I wished to learn as much as possible about the country we would be joining with before I met the foreign dignitary.” Now that he’d started speaking, the words came more easily.

He approached her now, sinking down onto the bench beside her. She made no objection, turning to face him more fully.

Pausing to collect his thoughts, he stared down into his hands. “What I learned,” he continued. “is that Imivaria is a country of beauty and culture. I also, as time passed, realized what sort of union between our countries my father intended.” A chuckle forced its way out of him, more from nerves than actual mirth. He still remembered the pile of rocks that had settled into his stomach when he’d first learned he was to marry the Paragon. That sick heaviness had settled deep inside him, remaining until this very moment, as he sat near enough to Guinevere to feel the warmth of her thigh against his.

Guinevere looked at him with a look he’d begun to associate with her grave moods. It was the look she’d worn when they’d first met, her eyebrows drawn down a fraction of an inch and her eyes intentionally blank. He could only meet that look for a moment before he looked away, glancing at Falmere long enough to spot his twitching frown before he had to look into his hands again.

“I’m sure you had similar fears about our union.” He wet his lips, looking into her face again. “The thought of marrying a stranger, well. . . it could only be an unpleasant and frightening thought, couldn’t it?”

“My father insisted I would be happy in Bedor.” She replied, breaking her lengthy silence. “He also assured me I would grow to love my young, handsome Bedorian Prince.” Her mouth twisted into a smile.

Bradley’s face heated, uncomfortable warmth prickling up his neck and into his cheeks. He couldn’t help the chuckle that came. “My parents told me the same. But I worried, and in my worry I studied. I thought, after all my research, I was prepared to meet the Paragon.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself. “I was mistaken.”

Falmere was definitely choking back laughter now, his shoulders shaking. Neither Bradley nor Guinevere looked at him, maintaining eye contact. Bradley reached out to take her hands, closing the tiny distance that remained between them.

“In my research, I learned that all Imivarian citizens are taught the art of combat, down to the smallest girl. Out of this interest in personal safety, a custom was born that I found to be completely strange to me.” He reached into his tunic, grasping for the knife where it had been resting, cold and unforgiving, against his skin for the better part of an hour. He saw Falmere flinch as he pulled the knife free, but Guinevere raised a hand and he stilled at once. She never took her eyes from Bradley’s face as he slowly stood and then took a knee before her.

She made a noise like she’d sucked in a sudden breath but said nothing. For that, Bradley was glad. He didn’t think he’d have the courage to keep on if she’d had much to say.

“I know neither of us were really expecting this. Not . . .” he couldn’t help a laugh. “Not that we weren’t expecting to have to marry for politics. But I’m sure some part of you never expected that you would be obliged to move to a new country and marry a man who’d never met.” And truthfully, Bradley had never had that fear, of being shipped off to a strange man and forced to marry. His only option had been to wait and see who his father would choose for his bride. He had to admit, as much as it shamed him, that as a younger man, his only fear had been of not liking his bride-to-be. That she would be old, or ugly, or vapid. Now, as he looked up at Guinevere from where he knelt in front of her, he realized how horrid those early thoughts had been.

And how fortunate he was that Guinevere was as kind and intelligent as she was beautiful.

Realizing he’d been staring, he offered the knife, in its soft leather sheath, to her. “I cannot express how glad I am to have met you. I don’t expect that you’ll love me right away, nor do I make this proposal out of love or romance. But I have grown fond of you in the short time since you traveled here, and I hope that we can learn to rule together. You have proven yourself to be kind, and generous with your kindness, and I would count myself very lucky, indeed, if you would consent to be my wife.”

There was something strange in Guinevere’s face, an expression he couldn’t make sense of. It was not quite surprise, nor disgust, nor happiness. Instead, as he saw her blink, chewing the stud in her bottom lip, he thought it might be sorrow.

She reached for the knife nonetheless, plucking it from his open palm and pulling it from its sheath. The blade glimmered in the sunlight, and she gasped. Pride surged in Bradley’s hest. He had commissioned the knife when he’d first learned of the Imivarian tradition, and the royal smith had outdone himself. The knife was elegant, the blade shimmering with a rainbow of colors that Bradley couldn’t begin to understand the process of making. The handle had been inlaid with a single crystal, the stone glowing with the same iridescent rainbow as the blade.

Guinevere’s voice croaked. “I never--” she paused long enough to clear her throat and tried again. “I never imagined I would find myself in this situation. I came to Bedor expecting to marry a stranger, resigned to it, you could say. But this. . .” The blade glistened as she turned it, admiring thep lay of light across its length. “You have surprised me with this.”

Bradley smiled, relief hitting him harder than he’d expected it to. Behind Guinevere, he could see Falmere’s face, staring and pale. He tried not to look, tried to focus on Guinevere and her smiling face, but he could still feel the guard’s stare, burning into his skin.

He shifted his eyes back to Guinevere’s face as she covered the knife again and reached for his hand. A smile had creased her previously somber expression. She squeezed his hand in hers, tilting her head slightly.

“I will consent to this marriage,” her voice had a hint of pomp, of the sort of airs this occasion might usually require. It dropped away as she went on, leaving a pit in Bradley’s stomach. “But I will need you to understand something, first.”

“If we’re to marry, we’ll be sharing a great many things.” He hadn’t considered that at any length, yet. Sudden nerves dampened his palms; he wondered if she could tell. “Please, tell me, and I will do my best to understand.”

Guinevere took a deep breath, her eyes closing briefly as though she were preparing for something difficult. Bradley mirrored the movement without meaning to, sucking in a deep breath. When Guinevere spoke, she did so all in a rush.

“I may never grow to love you.” She blinked, almost looking startled. “I don’t want you to believe that this is some comment on you! I mean that I do not--I simply have no interest in romance. At least, I haven’t yet, and I don’t wish to mislead you.” She fell quiet all at once, staring down at their hands, still intertwined between them.

In the silence that fell, Bradley sucked in another deep breath. Her words rang through him, meandering through his brain. No interest in romance? Did that make her unable to love? Could he survive a marriage that would never include that aspect? He let his gaze track to Falmere, remembering when he had said something similar: that Guinevere would never love him. Just now, that guard looked back at him with one eyebrow raised. It was a look of superiority. Of knowledge. It was a look that said “Didn’t I tell you?”

And here was proof, and a puzzling piece of knowledge.

Bradley frowned, almost afraid to consider how her guard might be privy to this particular piece of intimate knowledge about the Paragon.

Nonetheless. . .

Guinevere was watching him, he saw as he looked at her again. It proved difficult to tear his eyes from Falmere’s face, but he accomplished it all the same.

“I understand,” she ventured, hesitant. “if that changes things. But I, too, believe that we could make a formidable couple. And the peace between our countries depends on an amicable union.”

Understanding came, and Bradley squeezed her hand, finishing the thought. “Perhaps an amicable match is our best option.”

They stared at one another, neither breaking the stillness. Bradley remained uncomfortably aware of Falmere’s closeness. Having him so near during what ought to have been an intimate moment left him feeling flushed. Nervous. His own guards had stayed at the entrance to the gardens. He shuddered at the thought of always having them directly beside him.

Finally, Guinevere stirred. She blinked, breathed in a long breath like she was coming out of a doze. Then she smiled, sheepish. “I suppose it’s time to give you something in return.”

Curiosity welled, and Bradley watched as Guinevere pulled a soft pouch from the waistband of her saree. The garment had no pockets, but she made do. As he watched, she tilted the bag. A glittering object fell into her palm, and Bradley was suddenly laughing.

“Bedor has its own marriage traditions.” She laughed with him, and he thought he saw the hint of a blush in her cheeks. “I had this made by your own smith not more than a week ago.”

As she held up the ring, Bradley couldn’t stop laughing. Then she was laughing, too, and she offered the ring to him. It was a solid thing, a thick band of white gold, unadorned except for the elegant designs burnished into the metal. It slipped onto his finger easily. He was still laughing when he realized Guinevere had joined him on the ground, slipping down from the bench to kneel with him.

While he wiped moisture from his eyes, his lungs still spasming with mirth, Guinevere cupped his face with her hands. “I hope,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “that our match will amount to more than two amicable strangers who occasionally cross paths.”

Before he could respond, she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his.

After that, he wouldn’t have had breath to respond if he’d wanted to.

Spartacus: Vengeance Rewatch - Episode 1: Fugitivus

Sex Scene: All of them. They went to a whorehouse.

“Cock”: 4

“Cunt”: 2

“Kill Them All”: 0 (I wonder if this is said at all in S2 or 3)

“Fucking Gaul”: 3

Slow motion Face Punch:0

Episode Name Dropped by: Aurelia

Memorable Death:  Aurelia

Favourite Line: “We must stand as one, or fall divided.”

- This is the greatest way they could have introduced the new Spartacus actor. It was amazing.

- Spartacus facing down that horse is beautiful.

- AGRON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- DONAR!! =]

- He’s still throwing his bloody sword.

- I love that Donar has this axe thing, it’s awesome and sets him apart from the other gladiators.

- This beginning fight scene is so well done.

- Agron oh gosh. He’s so angry, so crazed by his grief. Everyone is so wary of him, but like he lost his brother. My poor baby.

-  “I believe the man dead.” – the moment I fell in love with Donar and his bromance with Agron.

- I can always rely on Agron to say “cock”

-  Spartacus has never really been a savage until right now when he carves a message into a dead guy’s chest. Seriously, wtf. 

- I’m so in love with Agron’s necklace.

- Ha! Rome, it looks like it’s still being built. That’s hilarious.

- Pompey mention!

- What is with all those masks?! How fucking creepy.

- “Where youth plummets, maturity may soar.”

- As someone who hasn’t ever paid any interest in wars, all this undoubtedly historically accurate war talk is super boring.

- Everyone under the sun is named Marcus

- Varinius!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh man, seriously. Just, Brett Tucker is an Aussie actor that has been in basically everything! I can’t take him seriously.

- AND HE FUCKING SAID MONGRELS!

- Seriously this triangle between Ilithyia, Varinius, and Glaber is basically the entire subplot of S2.

- The one thing I get super bored of in Spartacus is men and their egos.

- Mira is literally in the sewers and she’s still a queen.

- Oh hey, the Veteran!

- The kid that says “I will kill many Romans” looks like Tyler Lockwood from Vampire Diaries.

- You can actually see Mira’s face fall when Aurelia comes into view. Like she knows that when Aurelia is around Spartacus can see no one else. It’s not a romantic thing, it’s a Varro thing.

- Agron and Donar bromance, I love it. Almost makes up for Duro’s death, almost.

- The Gauls are mostly comprised of New Zealanders – just an observation.

- I sometimes can’t believe that the gladiators treat the house slaves so poorly and sometimes don’t seem to give a fuck about any slaves still in chains.

- “Rabbits” - I still don’t understand this.

-  Oh, Acer.

-  Yessss Mira!!!!!

- Oh the showdown between the Gauls and the rest of the slaves is so intense and beautifully done.

- I really like that even with the new actor they still put all the same scars on him. Good job.

- Oh gosh. Mira loves Spartacus so much…..and S2 Spartacus clearly cares for her way more than he did in S1, but still. She deserves better.

- “I have proven troublesome to kill.”

- Gah, the thing with Spartacus in S2 is he cares more about killing Romans than protecting the other slaves. At least Mira and even Agron are there to pick up the slack.

- “I hear you wish to command my men.” – when I first heard this I thought it very antagonistic, like the fractions were splitting apart. But it’s more of Spartacus being the head honcho, and Crixus being a General that leads his own fraction but still reports to Spartacus. Warfare is not my thing but I’m learning.

- Yeah, because a curtain is going to give you so much privacy. Everyone can still hear you guys.

- “Did his blood bear fruit?”

- Trebius! Ah!

- Arena games!!! Oh how I miss you!

- Seppia really freaking frustrates me. She is so childish and has no idea the kinds of games she’s playing. She’s a fool.

- Seppius and Seppia are fucking right? That’s what they’re implying? A whole bunch of incest? I wanna hate it but I can see it.

- I don’t understand how the gladiator fights could be boring? Or how Batiatus’ gladiators could have made it more entertaining? You’re still watching two dudes kill each other.

- I haven’t even watch Star Wars but Oenomaus in that cloak gives me Jedi vibes.

- That guy in the alley gives me Pirates of The Caribbean vibes.

-  On one hand whenever I see Oenomaus I’m like “Don’t hurt this precious baby.” But then again “Hell yes baby you kick their asses!”

- Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!! Arm bone through the skin!!!!!!! Shit! Knife through the eye!!!!! Ah! Right through the jaw!!!!! Oenomaus is such a badass!

- Aurelia talking about how much she wants to go back to Janis. Well, you shouldn’t have left him in the first place! Her pride was as foolish as any man’s.

- “That lopsided grin. Eye’s promising mischief. I’ve seen in many times, upon his father.” –seriously my shipper heart. Spartacus loved Varro, it’s canon.

- “I fell to love the crooked bend of Varro's lips long before the man himself.” “As did I.” – IT’S MOTHERFLIPPING CANON I TELL YOU.

- I mean Spartacus can be a kind man when he wants to. He’s just very single minded.

- Gotta give their art department props. Having a fake pregnant woman be naked, and it look real….like damn, they deserve a pat on the back.

- I am loving Ilithyia’s purple gown thing though, wowzah.

- Marcus Crassus mention again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- “She was a fucking bitch” – I find that fucking hilarious.

- Agron said bleat! Goat reference! My shipper heart!

- Wow, Spartacus said “whores” somehow that’s more shocking than anything else on this show.

- I love Agron’s loyalty to Spartacus but I wish Spartacus would see it too. In this season and the next he kind of treats Agron like crap.

- “You had me at whores.” – I love Donar.

- “Avoid unnecessary risk.” Sparty, baby, do you realise who you talking to?!

- Loving the idea of Mira, Donar, and Agron planning behind Spartacus’ back. These are the people who want to protect the other slaves, not spend every day covered in Roman blood.

- “As are all things, in pursuit of a woman.” Gotta love the salty gay trope. Agron pulls it off swimmingly.

- “I will tell Janis of you. Of the man who loved his father above all others.” CANON. I really didn’t ship Spartacus and Varro this much the first time around.

- “I gave my word. Blood and Honour. It yet speaks to the man.” as said in S1.

- Gladiators in hoods is everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Woman with a massive dildo fucking a dude. Yep.

- Oh! I think this is the first penis shots we’ve had in a while.

- Guy on Guy sex. Well then. So much gay sex in this series, it’s glorious.

- The four guys throwing the girl around makes me super fucking uncomfortable, especially when you can hear her. She is so not enjoying this.

- Another memorable death = dude jerking off and just as he’s about to finish, gets a sword through his throat.

- It’s gotta suck so bad for all these guys that are dying with their dicks out. Especially that guy that got a sword right between the legs. Ouch.

- Never noticed but there’s a very very large woman in the whorehouse and a skinny guy on all fours in front of her. I’m so curious about what’s happening there.

- How many innocent body slaves died in this attack???

- Poor boy with cum all over his face.

- Trebius is so fucking disgusting. Peeing all over that girl.

- I get that this girl is probably horrendously traumatized but she really have to go and kill the only lead they had to Naevia.

- AGRON KICKING THE SHIT OUTTA TREBIUS COS HE SOLD HIM AND DURO TO BATIATUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahh my heart!

- I seriously hate Spartacus in this scene and it kind of tainted him for me. He’s telling Agron that he can’t kill Trebius as revenge for Duro, BUT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT SPARTACUS IS DOING WITH GLABER! He’s such a fucking hypocrite!

- Crixus sticking his hand inside Trebius’ gut is so gross.

-  I get that Glaber is angry at Ilithyia but she clearly has some PTSD that is triggered by that house and he’s forcing her to stay there. Not cool.

- OVER THE CLIFF!! Yes Ilithyia!

- There’s no logical reason for that mask to be there, except to provoke memories.

- Flashback penis.

-  I never noticed but Ilithyia has a really big mouth.

- I honestly thought the figure was gonna be Spartacus, I was so surprised to see Lucretia.

- Lucretia being out of her freaking mind is magical. All the props to the actress.

- “What fragments her shattered mind yet holds.”

- Seriously, the male ego.

- Old woman slave = headcanon that she ran the whole Battiatus household. Also, that young boy slave is super attractive, how has Agron not noticed this?!?

- “Grab your fucking cock.” – oh wait, maybe he has! Ha!

- Foreshadow of Agron not thinking house/body salves are worth much. Ahhhhhhh how wrong he shall be ;)

- “We knew this day would come” SPARTACUS YOU MADE THIS DAY COME, YOU WROTE A FUCKING MESSAGE! Gah!

- Angry little lost boy. Agron is my fave if you can’t already tell.

-  “That is no longer my title.” – poor baby.

- “There is but one place for an animal without honour.”

- Singleminded Spartacus is one of my least faves.

- I love how they take Lucretia way back to the drought, to before Spartacus killed Theokoles.

- I really love how in this show they show woman with pubic hair, COS IT’S FUCKING NATURAL and women shouldn’t have to shave because society tells them to.

- “Smashed upon the cliffs.” – foreshadowing!

- Argh! This leaning back shit women do during sex scenes on tv annoys the hell outta me. That move is done purely for the male viewers. For the women doing it, it’s really fucking awkward.

-  “You bark as a dominus.” “Sheep stand idle if not prodded by snapping jaw.” – I love Agron and Donar moments.

- “Let us compare teeth and have answer.” – they are basically talking about comparing dick sizes right?????

- Lucretia with dark hair and wearing a purple dress. Goddess.

- “Do not shed fucking tear.”

- Fucking love that Lucretia is the one to spot Spartacus.

- Seppius rolling his eyes at Glaber. Me too, bro, me too.

- Ah the foreshadow of Glaber and Seppia. Yuck.

- The rebels coming to Spartacus’ aid. I love their loyalty.

- Seriously Donar and his axe.

- Agron picking up Aurelia and throwing her over his shoulder. It’s hilarious because she is so freaking tiny compared to him, and also cos he’s super gay and doesn’t understand females at all.

- Lucretia and Crixus seeing each other again is super powerful.

- MIRA with a “fucking Gauls.” Did not see that coming.

-  “Do any of us hold fucking worth to you?”

- Mira’s little rant to Spartacus is all well and good, but did she have to be mean to Agron.

- The Spartacus and Crixus bromance is strong in S2.

- VENGEANCE NAME DROP.

- Agron looks so little, so small and young. My baby.

- I still fucking hate Aurelia.

- I do love that Agron was willing to go and fight Glaber because of Aurelia, someone he didn’t even seem to like at all.Baby’s got a heart.

- THE BEGINNING OF THE REBEL ARMY!!!!!!!!!!!YAAAAAS!

Okay but, I really like the Love Square. I don't like any other ship aside from the Love Square that's the only ship I'll ever like. I don't get why me not liking other ships makes me homophobic?? I also don't ship Alyanette because I see them just as best friends and I think the show only sees them as that too. I'm never gonna ship them as a couple so I don't get why that makes people awful and homophobic. You can't just make people make ships more popular

you and a few other people have left similar questions in my inbox so i’m going to do my best to explain this. there seem to be other users who are also confused. i really recommend you read @chatchevalier  ‘s explanation here since she also spoke about this. 

first, let’s get the easy thing taken care of. the prevailing argument from most of the queer people in fandom who made posts yesterday was we want you to respect our ships. respect. that means no sending us hate, no bashing our ships, no tagging onto our fics and art and posts about how much you don’t ship our ship. don’t like? don’t engage. i think everyone can agree on that point. 

now what seems to be tripping people up is the whole “queer ships being unpopular is homophobia” sentiment that’s spreading around. i want to make this clear, this is in no way meant to shame people for their ships. i’m a multi-shipper myself and ship most if not all the ships in this fandom involving the miraculous class. what i’m trying to draw attention to is fandom trends and consistent fandom behavior. 

so, i’l use the example i showed in my screenshots on the original post going around. oftentimes, i get people who come into my inbox telling me how much they hate chlonette (chloe x marinette) because it ships a bully with their victim. now that in and of itself isn’t homophobia i think we can all agree. you’re allowed to dislike that ship for that reason. i think a lot of people react to chlolya (chloe x alya) for the same reasons. 

but let’s look at chlonath (chloe x nathanael). we arguably run into a similar problem. chloe being paired with someone she bullies. chlonath is particularly interesting because chloe and nathanael don’t interact very often (maybe a total of 10 seconds in “evillustrator”). chloe interacts with alya more, and interacts with marinette much much more. but look at the popularity of each of these ships. (i’ll be using # of ao3 stories as a proxy for this). 

Chloe Bourgeois/Alya Cesaire: 38Chloe Bourgeois/Marinette Dupain-Cheng: 90Chloe Bourgeois/Nathanael Kurtzberg: 125

despite the fact that chloe has barely interacted with nathanael and bullies him right along with the other classmates, chlonath is more popular than chlonette and chlolya. this is also a good time to point out that this is the only straight ship of the bunch. 

this happens in media a lot. you have a common trope introduced, in this case it’s a bully/bullied relationship becoming a romantic relationship. another common one off the top of my head is the friends to lovers trope. now when we see it applied to a straight pairing, we love it. adrienette friends to lovers is ridiculously popular, and it seems that the bully/bullied to lovers trope in chlonath is also compelling to people. but the moment these same tropes are attached to a queer pairing, interest plummets. which is why chlolya and chlonette are less popular despite those characters interacting more in canon, and why alyanette is always seen as “just two friends” even though they interact more than adrien and marinette do. 

and, to top it all off: i’m gonna bet my bank account that users get more hate for shipping chlonette and chlolya than they do chlonath. 

we do this unconsciously as a result of heteronormativity ingrained into us through continued exposure to societal homophobia. everyone is socialized to think that heterosexuality is preferred. it’s why there’s so much straight romance on tv, and it’s why gay people are still getting fired for their sexuality in the US. we can’t help this stuff, but if you learn to look for it, it’s easy to see. the fact that we enjoy certain tropes as they are applied to straight ships but not those same tropes as they are applied to queer ship.....is an example homophobia. internalized homophobia, implicit homophobia, subtle homophobia but homophobia nonetheless. 

if you ship chlonath but not chlonette, this doesn’t mean you’re homophobic. but when you look at macro-level trends like ship popularity in fandom, you see patterns that are anything but a coincidence. it’s no coincidence that this pattern of popularity matches up with patterns of hate. chlonette and chlolya get questioned more, people get more hate for it. chlonath doesn’t get nearly the amount. it’s very subtle, but this is the kind of implicit homophobia you see in media. 

now the solution is not to force you to like pairings you don’t like. not at all. this is just something to be aware of and something to consider when people wonder “why are queer ships getting all this hate?” queer shippers notice this because we’re hyper aware of the popularity of our ships. if you deal only in the love square it’s hard to see this, so we’re just pointing this out. 

we’re not telling you to ship our ships. we’re not asking for more popularity. we just want you to acknowledge fandom homophobia and keep people from bullying us for the queer content we produce. 

Hi! Looooveee your writing, you're so talented!! Anyway, im still sad that bellarke are separated for 6 years , could you do one where Clarke made it back in time to leave with the rest of the gang + bellamy , and like, how it would be if she were with them ? that would be cool. ❤️

Hi! Thank you, you are so kind!! This was interesting to write, since my hiatus project is all about them in canon-verse during those six years, but it was fun to think about.. Thanks for the prompt :D [ao3]

“It’s now or never,” Raven tells him, regret in every wordshe speaks.

Bellamy looks towards the upper level again, silently begging.Come on Clarke, come on Clarke.

“Just,” Bellamy says, refusing to look away from thelanding, “just one more minute. Give her one more minute.”

Raven sighs behind him, and he can hear her shuffling at thedoorway of the ship. “Sixty seconds. We can’t even afford that. I’m going tostart launch, if you’re not in here in the next fifty seconds, I won’t be ableto stop it from leaving you too.”

Bellamy nods, eyes laser focused on the spot where Clarkeshould emerge, where she will emerge.

He hears the others’ voices echoing out from the ship, buthe can’t focus on them when he hears a loud crash from up above, right fromwhere the lab’s entrance to the outside is.

And then, he sees the most beautiful sight in his entirelife – Clarke, practically clawing her way towards the railing.

He opens his mouth, ready to holler to her to hurry the hellup, they need to go now, when she spieshim, and freezes right at the top of the stairs.

“What are you doing?”She yells, sounding angrier than he’s ever heard her.

He doesn’t even have time to be confused before he picks upon the absolute fury lining every part of her body as she barrels down thestairs and straight towards him. Bellamy can do nothing but watch as shereaches him, and grips the front of his suit as best as she can through herthick gloves.

“Bellamy Blake,”she growls, chest heaving with every breath she takes, “get on that goddam ship!”

He’s so focused on accepting the fact that she’s actuallyhere, that she made it, that it takeshim a second for his eyes to catch on the crack in her helmet and the raw panicin her eyes. And he knows she’s not scared for herself.

She’s petrified for him.

So he forces his legs to move, both of them dragging eachother along until Clarke shoves him in front of her to climb the stairs to theship. She keeps pushing him, following right behind him until both of them areplowing into the ship and everyone else is staring at them in silent shock.

“It’s about fucking time,” Raven tells them, her handsmoving to flick some switches. “You had five seconds, now shut the damn doorand buckle the fuck up.”

This time, Bellamy’s the one pushing Clarke, right into oneof the two remaining seats next to each other before he reaches for the latchto shut the ship’s entryway, not even glancing back as the large doors slideclosed in the lab.

He’s back to Clarke almost instantly, his entire body onalert as he checks her over, trying to help get her buckles in place, becauseshe’s panting and shaking, and he knows she must have practically killedherself sprinting to get back in time.

But she pushes him off, still gasping for air, but pointingto his own empty seat. “Please Bell,”she breathes.

He knows what she’s asking without her having to say it, sohe slides into the seat next to her, tightening his own buckles even as hewatches to make sure hers are secured too.

“Opening launch door,” Raven calls.

“Did you get the power on?” Murphy asks Clarke, as he gripsEmori’s hand.

Clarke nods, still clearly out of breath, or completelyoverwhelmed. “Had to climb a fucking tower to do it,” she huffs, almosthysterical.

Raven smirks. “Initiating countdown.”

She hits one final switch.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6…

Bellamy turns to Clarke, can’t look away when she closes hereyes and tilts her head back until her helmet is leaning against the ship’swall. He’s so engrossed in her that he almost startles when her gloved handreaches for his, and he’s momentarily brought back to another time when hegripped that hand like it was his only lifeline.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

He holds on tight, squeezing her hand once, twice. Shedoesn’t open her eyes, but she smiles in relief, and Bellamy doesn’t know whathe would have done if he never saw that smile again.

—

His own rising panic had subsided as soon as he knew theywere all safe in that ship. He didn’t care that they were going back to theArk, or that he was currently in a rocket. They were all alive, they were goingto make it.

And then they hit the break in the atmosphere, and thatcrack in Clarke’s helmet splinters into five more, stretching across the widthof the glass.

He knows what that means even before Raven skywalks to theArk as fast as she can to open the door, and Clarke’s oxygen goes critical.

By the time they’re actually running through the hallways toget oxygen flowing through the Ark, Emori and Murphy are supporting Ravenbetween them, and Bellamy is dragging a near-unconscious Clarke.

The moment he can take his helmet off, he rips hers off too,and gives her whatever oxygen he has left.

He later finds out that it’s Echo who flips the breaker, savingthem all.

And that she’s the one who dragged Clarke, and then Bellamy,towards the vents giving them air.

—

“Is the water filtration system functional?” Clarke asks,and Raven grunts in affirmation as she paces back and forth to check between aset of wires she’s working on and the computer screen Monty got running.

“And how about the algae farm?” Bellamy adds. He sees Clarkenod her head in agreement, as if that was the next question she was going tospew off to Raven.

“And what about–,” Clarke starts, only to be cut off by Raventhrowing her hands in the air.

“Enough!” She says sternly, but not unkindly. Bellamy looksat her in surprise, as does Clarke. At their reactions, Raven’s face gentles.“Enough,” she repeats. “It’s been over twenty-four hours since we got here, andyou both have been badgering me and Monty nonstop. You both need to go andrest.”

It’s true, but that doesn’t mean either of them are willingto admit it. There’s so much that only Monty and Raven can do, but he andClarke haven’t been willing to accept that there’s time to take a break. Montyjust left a little while ago with a yawn, dragging his feet to go find Harper.The others had gone searching for any soft surface to lay on hours ago.

“You need to rest too,” Clarke grumbles, avoiding looking atBellamy now that their focus has been pulled from what needs to be done.

Raven just shakes her head exasperatedly. “I did. You two were so busy heckling Montyabout the heating system and how he shouldn’t be straining his hands so heshould tell you guys what to do that you didn’t even realize I disappeared fora few hours.”

And now that Bellamy thinks about it, there was a point afew hours ago where there was a break in Raven grunting and muttering at themin frustration.

Raven must see something in the way Bellamy sighs, becauseshe pushes on, as if sealing her victory. “I promise that by the time you twowake up, I’ll have a full report on everything you’ve been hounding me about.”

Clarke opens her mouth, looking ready to put up a fight, soBellamy gently grasps her elbow, pulling her attention to him. “She’s right,” hetells her, ignoring the snort Raven gives. He wants to tell Clarke that out ofall of them, she probably needs the rest the most since she was the mostoxygen-deprived, but he knows she would only argue further. So instead, he letsgo of her arm and tilts his head toward the door to the control room, andstarts to leave.

“Just a quick nap,” Clarke agrees reluctantly, following himout of the room. He thinks he vaguely hears Raven say ‘thank god’ as the door swings shut behind him.

He turns around to make a joke about it, but he’simmediately met with two small hands shoving him back, and a very angry Clarke.“You idiot,” she whispers, somehowmanaging to sound furious even as she keeps her voice low so Raven can’t hear.

He’d be surprised by the reaction if he hadn’t expected itthe moment everyone was breathing again and laughing breathlessly that they hadmade it.

When it didn’t happen immediately, he knew she was stallingby staying and pestering Raven and Monty with question after question. He knewthe minute they were alone, she would explode with the anger that’s beensimmering just under her skin. But he wouldn’t leave her side, not when theyalmost lost each other.

“I told you to use your brain, not launch it out of yourhead and forget you even had one!” She whisper-shouts. “You could have died.”

“If we hadn’t waited, you would have,” he points out, impressed with how calm he sounds, evenas the thought of Clarke being left behind on that burning planet makes himnauseous.

“The night blood could have worked,” she reasons, poking hischest with a finger.

He reaches his own hand out to hold hers in place. “That wasa hypothetical that I didn’t want to test with your life.”

Clarke’s nostrils only flare in response, and he just wantsher to go sleep. She looks exhausted and pale and the last thing he wants to dois whisper passive-aggressively to each other until they’re truly shouting.

“Look,” he sighs, wanting to just hold her, assure himselfthat she’s really, truly here. But he also doesn’t want her to pull away. “Idid use my head. I used my heart too, just like you said I needed to in orderto keep everyone alive. And my head, my heart,” he moves her hand to rest flatabove his heart, “every piece of me all the way to the tips of my fingers andmy toes, told me that if I closed that door on you, if–,” he pauses, thethought making his stomach plummet, “if I left you there, it would have beenthe greatest regret of my life.”

For a moment, Clarke just stares at him, openly gaping.Bellamy thinks she might actually punch him in the face for taking that risk.

Instead, she reaches her other hand out for him, and wrapsher arms around him like she had done in that office in the lab, locking herhands behind his back like she’s never going to let go. “When I saw youstanding in front of that rocket, it was the best and worst thing I have everseen in my life,” she admits hoarsely into his t-shirt.

Bellamy’s responding chuckle is wet with emotion. “Seeingyou in that awful jumpsuit was the most beautiful thing,” he tells her, leaningdown to place a chaste kiss to her forehead, her skin clammy. “Can we not beangry about me wanting to wait and just be happy that all eight of us got herein one piece?”

He feels her tears soaking into his shirt, and the realizationhits him, slamming into his gut.

They’re all alive.For once, no casualties.

He grudgingly pulls away so that he can see her shining blueeyes. “I just want you to take a nap, Clarke. I need to nap. So can we please just go and find rooms with beds sowe can sleep? I think we’ve earned that much.”

Clarke nods her head once more, looking down at the tearsshe left on him before looking back up at him. “Or we can find one room, onebed. So we can take a nap together,” she hedges, not daring to be the one tobreak eye contact first.

Bellamy’s breath whooshes out of him, a surprised chuckleescaping him. “Yeah?”

She rests her forehead against his chest. “I don’t think Ican let you out of my sight for a while. The last time I did, I accepted that Imay never see you again, and I never want to feel that again,” she says, anddespite her words, he can hear the smile in her voice.

Bellamy takes her hands, starting to pull her further downthe hall to where an Ark-issued bed has their names written all over it. Theyfall into a blissful, deep sleep, arms wrapped around each other, clinging toone another.

And to Raven’s utter delight, they sleep well past what canappropriately be called a nap, letting her work in peace for hours.

I hate to be a pain, but have you got a list of owari no seraph or specifically mikayuu story recommendations anywhere? I love your stories and trust that you have good taste lol :) Thanks!!

OH YES! Now it’s time for me to shamelessly advertise for my favorite fics! ;D Thank you for asking, and thank you for the compliment on my fics! /)///(\ you’re too kind!

In no particular order…

Cherry Boy by EtherealBeing

Summary: As if being dragged into a sex shop by Shinoa wasn’t bad enough, now Yuu also has to deal with the store’s uncomfortably attractive attendant.

Status: Ongoing

This is biased because Anna is one of my closest friends in the fandom, BUT SHE IS SO DAMN TALENTED. You will laugh, you will blush, you will be mindblown by the complexity in these character’s thoughts, it’s honestly a wild ride and I can’t wait to see the grand finale of it all that is coming to us soon. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a must.

Corner of a Birdcage by oxeh

Summary: “So, to sum it up, you’re like Superman without the spandex… And without the laser eyes, X-Ray vision, and ice breath. Also, you kill vampires and Horsemen instead of dealing with—“

“Basically, I’m not like Superman at all.” 

or

Yuu is a university student that tends to live for the moment. Mika is a cynical superhero that’s more super than a hero. Fate is a bit aggressive with intertwining their lives.

Status: Ongoing

THIS FIC IS BRILLIANT. If you have not read it yet, I swear go do it! It’s funny, it’s exciting, it flows and it’s just a lovely, enjoyable read. Oxy is a sweetheart as well and she’s got some incredible ideas in that head of hers, lemme tell you! Go check it out!!! You won’t regret it :D

Diamond in the Rough by Hannaadi88, Sarah737

Summary: Mikaela had been the captain of the Seraph for over seven years, yet he’d never come across another ship carrying such riches. The prospect of boarding the Opal and stealing all she had made a rare smile play on his lips. 

If he did this well, he would finally make a name for himself. The Opal might just be what he’d always wanted- a chance to prove how fearsome he could be. 

Mikaela Shindo will be a name to revere among all pirates to sail the seven seas.

Status: Ongoing

THIS IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES. Hanna and Sarah are some of the most talented people I know, and together, they are unstoppable and unrelenting!! From the descriptives to the dialogue to the intriguing plot, this story makes pirates sexy, let me tell you. LOL, seriously you will not regret it… if you want a good time, I invite you to read this masterpiece right here!

Garden of Hades by 6lilystrings9

Summary: A stubborn, annoying, and repulsive human is captured by the Vampire forces, and to his dismay, Mika is assigned as his handler.

How irritating.

(The AU where human Yuu-chan and vampire Mika meet for the first time as captive and keeper)

Status: Ongoing

I remember when Lily first talked about her fic in our Skype chat room and how when I read it, I was stunned! I didn’t realize how amazing it was, how well put-together, how structured. It’s enticing and exciting and full of vivid descriptives and intense, heart-pounding scenes. Another must-read, if you ask me, and I also cannot wait to see how it ends.

Scented by Hannaadi88

Summary: In a world ruled by beta neutrality, alphas and omegas are controlled by suppressants which modify their natural inclinations. Under constant surveillance, unproductive members of society are removed in the name of efficiency. Yuichiro Hyakuya is deemed infertile by the Board and is sentenced to certain death. In an act of defiance Yuichiro steals enough suppressants to hide his scent and joins the military under the guise of a beta. 

It would be his luck to find himself under the command of his assigned mate, Mikaela Shindo.

Status: Ongoing

Hanna is not only a friend of mine, but she is sO DAMN TALENTED! I recommend all of her fics, so please check out her page while you’re at it, but she is well known for her big multi chapter fic, Scented. This story takes the concept of omegaverse and gives it almost a Mulan-like feel to it, with Yuu being in disguise and all. It’s really fantastic and another thrilling story I highly suggest!

Afire love by stirkedawn

Summary: After Nagoya’s failed mission, an unsteady truce is formed between Shinoa’s squad and Mikaela Hyakuya, making Yuu feel conflicted inside. On one hand, he’s got Mika back, his friends are alive, and they seem to be trying to be civil with each other, even if it’s just for his sake. On the other hand, Guren is being held captive by the vampires, Shinya has just given them a mission Yuu doesn’t like, and Mika… Yuu doesn’t really know what Mika is feeling.

Maybe not even Mikaela knows what he’s truly feeling, after all.

Status: Completed

You will commonly see the fandom preach that if all goes wrong, Afire love is our accepted canon. This fic immerses itself into the canon universe of Owari no Seraph and gives us an epic climax and end to the series that it probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read. I also agree that if the manga plummets to total disaster, Afire love is what I will think of for a happy ending.

Somebody to Lean On by TrashPanda

Summary: Yuichiro needs a partner to help him with vampire hunting. His only option is to seek out somebody in the slave auctions. He comes upon a discounted slave, as beautiful as he is unwanted, and Yuu claims him for himself. Little did he know, this slave would change everything he ever knew about him himself, and in the process Yuu discovers he cannot live without this man, now that he has him in his life.

Status: Ongoing

This story is fantastic! It’s got an interesting plot that’s brilliantly written, a romance beautifully described and a story that interests the reader endlessly. I can picture this fic animated like it was its own anime show. It’s really, really good and I suggest it! I can’t wait for another update! I also suggest the author in general, they have some really good stuff. 

My Inner Beast by Northernreign

Summary: Yuuichirou is a young werewolf who finds himself awake one evening in a human orphanage.

To avoid being executed, he desperately tries to conceal his true identity from the “monstrous” humans who- along with the vampires, have been responsible for his kind’s slow decline into extinction. But over time, he comes to know one particular human boy who will help him learn to embrace his humanity, not resent it. Together they will overcome countless fated tragedies with the sheer power of will and love alone. Each event will bring him closer to the answer he has been seeking for almost a lifetime.

 Just who really are the true monsters in this world? 

The vampires? 

The humans?

The werewolves?

Or himself?

Status: Ongoing

A truly underrated story!! Nathalie is an incredible writer and artist and she combines those skills to bring you this lovely story that doesn’t get enough attention- ESPECIALLY since it’s her first fic. You would never guess; she writes like a pro. This story takes you all over, from the eyes of so many of our beloved characters to shape the story and relationships in the best possible way. You can really feel everything she describes and it really stimulates the senses. Check it out if you haven’t, it’s a journey and I’m eager to see where it goes.

Rise of the Dragon by Crazyloststar, Sarah737, somnicordia (hihazuki)

Summary: Water… Earth… Fire… Air… In eras bygone, four nations coexisted in harmony. However, a series of tragedies began to befall the world, And none was left unscathed. The equilibrium of power has been tilted to a great imbalance, Its people fallen to temptation. The end is fast approaching, and all souls are fated to meet oblivion. Rumors whisper of the Avatar, the master of all four elements, holding the key to mankind’s only hope of salvation. Families pray under his guiding light, Enemies vow to divide and conquer. But the glimmer of hope is sometimes found in the darkest of places, somewhere people would least expect.

Status: Ongoing

As someone who is only just now watching Avatar for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. I’m still not 100% caught up, but this is a goddamn masterpiece and I can tell that from the first 3 chapters that I’ve read. This is an amazing project put together by some of the most talented authors and writers in the fandom that are all lovely, passionate friends of mine. They deserve all the love in the world. If you haven’t read it yet- especially if you don’t know anything about Avatar- READ IT ANYWAYS. You don’t need to understand Avatar or the original series at all to enjoy this fic. It’s magnificent; please check it out!

And, a little shameless advertising for my own stories, for those who are curious ;o

Unwritten by Vixenfur

Summary: While being forcefully dragged to KFC by Lacus- a man who had a black pit of a stomach- Mika had a once-in-a-lifetime, Snapchat-worthy experience. The guy in the left lane had no shame. He was unintimidated by a stranger with a phone and he continued to sing the song Unwritten confidently. Lacus found the experience hysterical

…. Little did they know they would run into each other again hardly an hour later- Yuu was in desperate need of a haircut, according to Shinoa.

He was dropped off at Sanguinem Salon, and was a little mortified to find out that the hot guy he just sang horribly to was Mika, the one holding hair-trimming scissors behind the chair.

Status: Completed

This fic was a blast to work on and an absolute time, from start to finish. A huge thank you to all the support and love I’ve gotten for it over the months I wrote it. I treasure every comment!

Tale as Old As Time by Vixenfur, Sarah737

Summary: An arrogant young prince named Mikaela and his castle’s servants fall under the spell of a wicked enchantress, who turns him into the hideous Beast until he learns to love and be loved in return. The spirited, headstrong village boy Yuuichirou enters the Beast’s castle after he imprisons Yuuichirou’s father, Guren. With the help of his enchanted servants, Yuuichirou begins to draw the cold-hearted Mikaela out of his isolation.

Status: Completed

I’m so proud of story! Sarah is my dear cowriter and friend, I’m always honored to collaborate with her and I’m so ecstatic over the love this fic has gotten. Thank you all for the love and we hope you enjoy our future projects!

Hiiragi Cirque Ave. Freakshow by Vixenfur, BlueberryApple

Summary: Yuuichirou is a Siren who cannot sing, and so he is taken captive by the Hiiragi Cirque Ave. Freakshow. He is expected to perform and earn the show money under the instruction of ringmaster Kureto Hiiragi. Naturally, Yuuichirou is opposed to his new life, but he slowly gets to know his new family and accept his situation.

Meanwhile, the ignored Nosferatu Mikaela finds himself incredibly attracted to the new Siren, and Yuuichirou can’t help but to be curious about the ghostly vampire himself.

Status: Completed

This story was so much fun to write. Destiny and I became great friends and made many memories. The sheer amount of fanart we got was OUTSTANDING and we couldn’t be more grateful for the love. Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed this story!

Thank you for asking! Feel free to reblog and share this list around. Everything on here is something I really enjoyed reading and think everyone should experience. As for my own fics, I shared the ones I’m most proud of (excluding my current ongoing works) and I hope you can enjoy them as well!

Legend & Lore: the Deep Sea

AN: Posting this now seems like a good idea :3c

AN: Inspired by artworks by @insanitytragedy [specifically this one]

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Ship: Yusaku/Aoi

Warnings: Character Death, Madness, Dark Themes, Canon Divergent

Word Count: 3832

Synopsis:  Nowadays, they say that you can’t have legends and lore without a little bit of blood and gore.

In which the mysterious hacker pursues the mysterious siren that inhbits the patches of corrupted game data known as the deep seas.

  Game lore states there are monsters in the winds; in the harrowing winds of the Speed Duel. Yusaku knows. He’s reached into the depths of the unknown and pulled one out and tamed it.

  Legend, however, states there are sentient, living creatures in the pockets of patched up and ruined data known as as the “deep seas”. Not quite AIs, definitely not players looking to stir up trouble either. True, living creatures with thoughts and actions that are not predetermined by a real person using an avatar nor predetermined by a computer doing its best to handle the output.

  Legends that are unreliable. Friend of a friend. Quibbles over the massive chat log that get lost in between the hundreds of thousands of conversations between no one. And everyone. Yusaku doesn’t pay much heed to baseless rumour. To what amounts to creepypasta. He doesn’t need to.

  Game. Set. Match.

  Yusaku logs out and pulls himself out of hiding spot with a sigh. He’s sweaty and frustrated. He had come too close in that last Duel to losing. Every game is life or death and he’s already lost too much; he’s got so much he can win back.

  Kusanagi greets him with a sparkle in his eye. Impressed. Yusaku sits down next to him and is impressed. He hands him a bottle of water; it’s lukewarm in Yusaku’s hand.

  ‘Well done, Playmaker.’

  ‘I almost lost.’

  ‘But you didn’t. And you should be thankful.’

  ‘…I am.’

  Kusanagi swivelled in his chair and chucked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the monitor. Yusaku showed little interest but acknowledged that Kusanagi wanted to bring something up.

  ‘You and I both know that artificial intelligence is somehow muddled up in this whole Knights of Hanoi business. But you and I also know that independent artificial intelligenc isn’t… fully functional. Yet. However,’ Kusanagi paused and Yusaku glared, sceptical, ‘I have reason to believe it will be soon. During that Duel, I picked up… unusual patterns. Someone – or, more specifically, something – managed to get past my barrier. Before the Duel, that zone was empty. No one came in, no one left. But something was there. And it ws moving erratically. I think you have a fan, Playmaker.’

  Yusaku slumped over the desk. He tapped his cheek.

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘Clear your schedule, tomorrow, you’re logging in and we’re going to go deep sea fishing. Let’s see if we can find ourselves a piece of artificial intelligence.’

  Yusaku straightened up and yawned. He flexed his hands. ‘Well, we better route the parts of data most susceptible to deteriorating and becoming part of the so-called deep sea system. If we’re lucky, since it’s only been a few minutes since I logged out, we might be able to get a trace on my “fan” but we shouldn’t get our hopes up. It could have just been… a bug.’

  ‘I dunno, Yusaku. I think we’re going to get lucky.’

  The two spent a good portion of the evening making preparations for their deep sea fishing, as Kusanagi had called it. Unfortunately, mere hours later, an unforeseen disruption to their exploration had occurred. Said disruption came in the arrogant, inhuman form of a popular charisma duelist known as “Ignis”.

 Ignis was the Vrains persona of an as of yet unknown person; presumably male but there were rumours of Ignis belonging to a female Duelist. Given Ignis’ avatar, it was hard to tell if Ignis was supposed to be male presenting to begin with. There was little in the way of either clothing and anatomy, instead some cartoonish-looking character with inky black skin and a purple web pattern and bulbous head. Despite being of small stature, Ignis carried quite the large demeanour and prescence on the Vrains.

  Ignis has been vying for the top spot of number one Charisma Duelist for a while now: cocky, arrogant, but puts on a great show. He and GO had been at odds for ages but now Yusaku – no, Playmaker – is the number one duelist in Vrains and Ignis is aggressively eying that title. He’s issued challenge after challenge but today, Playmaker finally accepted for this was no fight for popularity. No, there are larger forces at play.

  Ignis had been instated, albeit temporarily, as a Knight of Hanoi.

  It was a dirty fight. Trick after trick, deception and traps abound but Playmaker pulled through. For himself. For the crowd. It was a riveting duel but a selfish one. Flashy, spectacular, and full of twists: a conversation, of sorts, wherein it was two people greedily yelling at each other but tactfully disguising it as fair play and civility.

  But Playmaker pulled through, at the last second, after a destiny draw and sealed Ignis’ fate in a loss. The evil planted in him dissipated and his card, token of the Knight of Hanoi’s affection for him, banished. It was all well and good but Speed Duels are always a matter of life and death.

  Ignis made one mistake and it almost cost him his life.

  He was making rude remark after rude remark. Yes, he had enjoyed the duel but he didn’t enjoy the loss. That was the kind of person Ignis was. As such, he was passing off his dissatisfaction in cuss words and taunts. Playmaker couldn’t have cared less. He was about to make his temporary escape.

  He turned his back on Ignis but in the corner of his eye, he saw Ignis slip. Such a mistake would likely kill his corporeal form especially from this height. They were above the city and a vicious wind was raking the space between them and the virtual cement; cracked and turned to something akin to water.

  There was a single moment that felt like an eternity. Ignis’ eyes widened as he fell back and his arms outspread by his side. His mouth gaped and he blinked. Like, he didn’t quite believe what was happening. Fortunately, Playmaker could believe that the foolish duelist had fallen off his D-Board.

  Ignis hissed before he screamed. Playmaker whipped back around and instinct took his mind before logic could. Before Kusanagi could.

  Playmaker grabbed Ignis and yanked him back, they traded places in peril. Then Ignis rolled over and blew a raspberry at Playmaker. Playmaker braced himself for the worst and snuck a glance over his shoulder.

  ‘No one beats Ignis-sama and gets away with it.’ he taunted.

  Ignis floated in the digital space. He happily hung out like he was on a gently swinging hammock. Meanwhile, Playmaker was plummeting. He could feel the rush for real. His heart pounded in his chest.

  Yusaku closed his eyes and accepted that, for the first time in years, Vrains will have claimed another casualty. Finally, the mysterious hacker’s identity would come to light. He just wished that he could have reclaimed his past first. He has no doubt in his mind that Ignis would have no qualms over his death.

  Playmaker, no, Yusaku slips into the unknown.

  It’s not like a dive into a pool. It’s more like slipping into a recuperating sleep. Unfeeling but welcoming. His body goes numb but he’s not dead. He’s not dying.

  But that makes it sound too serene. Phasing through the protected realm of vrains into the deep sea is far from peaceful. He’s just experiencing a terrible dissonance between what is happening and what he’s feeling. He actively recognises that nothing is real. He can’t feel anything in his fingers because, technically, they’re not real; not to mention gloved too but some part of his brain refuses to accept that so, his fictional clothes become heavy with fictional water. His eyes sting and he’s gulping down water in lieu of air, not on purpose of course but nevertheless, his lungs are filling with imaginary sea water.

  His eyes flutter shut. He feels infinity at his fingertips. Infinity feels strangely like electricity. Tingling and gradually getting hotter. Yusaku sinks further into the unknown depths of zeroes and ones; of bubbles and seaweed. There was a grave pressure on his chest and he could hear his bones creak and bow beneath it; not snapping, yet, for there was nothing actually pressing upon them. He truly feels like he was at the bottom of the ocean; if the bottom of the ocean was a fault in a highly complex video game data.

  No one’s ever clipped through into the deep sea. The deep sea is highly protected and strongly guarded. It was thought to be impossible to clip through, and yet he had. Playmaker had phased through the other side of where the internet was thought to be impossible to touch. No one expects him to return alive.

  Nor does Playmaker. Nor does Yusaku.

  However, there is one. An unprecedented “one” in this cold, watery sea of “zeroes”.

  A giggle. A light chortle with something deviant lurking beneath its innocence. It sounds almost like the chimes of bells. Yusaku opens his eyes and everything is glitching. He thinks. He’s not certain. It could be his eyes playing tricks on him. It could be the game playing tricks on his eyes. But then, he sees her.

  And she’s beautiful.

  Or, at least, her avatar is.

  She comes closer and Playmaker sighs. He grimly accepts his fate. She comes closer still and clasps her hands either side of his face. She’s curious. She can’t be felt. Her fingers clip through part of her face and her tail twists and sashays to keep them both afloat. The loose, fluttery white fabrics of her outfit are battered by the inertia.

  She feels around the data of Playmaker’s persona and learns of him. She smiles to herself and decides that she will try and save him. After all, this is not their first meeting. It would appear the final hour was upon them: the hour in which Playmaker, no, her beloved Fujiki Yusaku would deliver upon his promise.

  So, she saves him so he would have the opportunity to return the favour like she always dreamed he would.

  She removes her fingers from his face and he falls in love with hers. It’s like a fairy tale for the modern age: superficial and nonsensical whilst maintaining the long honoured traditions of disturbance and cruelty. She is careful to not breach the sensitive data keeping Playmaker’s avatar in tact so she can remain strong enough to pull him through. Unlike him, the data that comprises her is far more flexible. No barrier can keep her out or in. He’s a lot more difficult and cumbersome but, nevertheless, she succeeds in bringing him to the surface.

  Kusanagi, meanwhile in the real world, succeeds in keeping Yusaku alive and breathing. Safe.

  She decides that she doesn’t want to leave the water. She remains by his side though. She idly watches as Playmaker spasms. She watches his back arch as he slams himself down, trying to rid himself of the imgarinary water in his imaginary lungs. He grunts and moans. She giggles. She thinks its funny. Cute even.

  Playmaker comes to and doesn’t log out. He’s hazy and aching. He’s definitely dying now that he can make sense of what he’s trying to process. He turns his head and she catches his eyes. He is quickly ensnared by her unearthly appearance. She’s too solid. She’s too real. She’s not real.

  But she’s beautiful. Large eyes and a button nose. She’s busty but it’s hard to tell with all her jewelery slung around her neck and how the fabrics she’s wrapped up in flutter. She looks as though she has wings. She looks as though she might have had wings once. There is a sense that she is ripped up and broken despite seeming as perfect as a porcelain doll.

  ‘Who are you?’ Playmaker asked; his hands shaking by his side as he tries to make sense of her. Of himself. Of his surroundings.

  ‘Blue Angel.’

  Again, she laughs.

  ‘Are you a duelist?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m still putting together a deck. It’s very difficult, you know when you have to steal the data.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A siren.’

  Yusaku glares at her. There’s all sorts of weirdos on the internet but Blue Angel doesn’t strike him as one. He examines her avatar. Blue. Lots of it. Blue hair, blue eyes a blue tie around her neck. She basically blends in the water. She’s vaguely angelic too with her fluttering fins at her lower back where human-like skin turned to azure scales. Yusaku couldn’t help but be reminded of the old adage: the more beautiful and colourful, the more venomous.

  Blue Angel huffs. Sick of Yusaku’s scepticism.

  ‘Fine. I’m a rogue AI.’

  ‘And here I thought I would find you.’

  ‘I’ve wanted to meet you for a while, Playmaker. You and I… we’re alike.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘Well, if we’re ever found by the wrong people, we are doomed to be deleted, correct?’

  ‘…Correct.’

  ‘See? Plenty in common already…’

  Playmaker got to his feet. He craned over his shoulder. He need to escape. He needed to go to the hospital.

  ‘Promise you’ll come and play again.’

  ‘I make no promises. Especially not ones I don’t know if I can keep.’

  Blue Angel became mournful.

  ‘I’ll wait. Forever.’

  She slunk into the water and her eyes became luminous. Her lips move beneath the water and bubbles and ripples shatter the stillness of it. It also caused disruptions to the water’s rendering. It spreads and breaks: unnatural waves.

  ‘Bye, bye.’

  Playmaker logs out once she leaves. Blue Angel gave him a bad feeling. It was deep and torrid. Visceral. It revived an unknown emotion in him: one he had long forgotten. One that he couldn’t explain. Especially not in a state like this. But he could connect it to his voided past. He just didn’t know how.

  Yusaku skipped school for the next few days to recover. He wasn’t the same after his accident; after his encounter with the siren AI known as Blue Angel.

  When he was in good enough shape to think clearly, his first matter of business was to dissect the Vrains for Blue Angel from the safety of his monitor. Not from the inside of Vrains. He hacked through every strain of data and information he could find with Kusanagi in tow. The information that they reaped in return was not what they expected.

  They found old player records belonging to a Zaizen Aoi. She had been Blue Angel before her account was forcibly deleted. The avatar Aoi used, parts of it, had become the rogue AI calling itself Blue Angel: the face, mostly. The AI had transformed the avatar from a winged human to a mermaid. Little wonder: wings would be useless submerged in the depths of the fictitious ocean.

  ‘Do you think we can believe her?’ Yusaku asked as he folded his arms.

  He wanted to believe. He wanted to meet her again.

  ‘We have no login or log-out records for the Blue Angel you encountered. The commandeered avatar is almost definitely its own entity. A simple stalk of Zaizen Aoi’s internet history show that she hasn’t logged into Vrains since her account was forcibly deleted. I have reason to believe that she hasn’t been in a duel since.’ Kusanagi replied with a shrug.

  ‘We have to keep her safe.’

  ‘Zaizen or Angel?’ Kusanagi raised an eyebrw.

  Yusaku shuddered.

  Kusanagi sighed then diplomatically stated: ‘We need to find out if there are other rogue AIs.’

  ‘Blue Angel takes first priority.’

  Kusanagi glanced at Yusaku. His eyes had been taken over by an obsession that twisted them a darker hue of green; or maybe, it was just the light from the monitor slightly discolouring them. Kusanagi hummed. He folded his arms.

  ‘A little obsessed, aren’t you?’

  ‘She’s an improbable existence. She’s fascinating.’ Yusaku admitted. ‘Scientifically speaking.’

  He hastily added that after he had come to a complete stop in his dialogue.

  ‘Mmhm.’ Kusanagi nodded. He sighed. ‘Well, assuming all the deep seas are connected then we’ve already narrowed it down. We can rule out downtown Vrains as well. Too many people know she’s been there so she’s likely avoiding it like plague.’

  ‘But there’s still thousands of digital kilometres that she could be spanning. And we don’t know the full extent of her abilities, she could have the ability to leave the Vrains and enter other internet accesses.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s likely given that her entire existence hinges on Vrains. I don’t believe she would be able to sustain form outside of Vrains.’

  ‘Do you think she can be captured?’

  ‘Captured how?’

  ‘Do you think we could download her to a duel disc? Like the other AIs? Presumably, she has cannibalised one of those and from that, she cannibalised Zaizen’s Blue Angel and likely gained sentience along the way.’

  ‘You want to take the mermaid’s freedom?’ Kusanagi asked. Genuine concern filtered into his voice and it scared Yusaku to his core.

  He hadn’t expected defiance from Kusanagi. Questioning from Kusanagi. He put his hand over his heart and bunched the fabric separating them in his hand. He couldn’t really feel it. His sensory understanding was still numb at best. At this point, he wasn’t expecting for it to return to the way it was before his accident. At least he could feel the movement of his heart though: a slow and steady pulse. It reminded him that he was real. Lately, that simple little fact was slipping form him mind. Frequently too.

  He took a breath and closed his eyes. ‘Yes.’ He decided at long last.

  ‘…Interesting.’

  Kusanagi didn’t further interrogate Yusaku from there but Yusaku’s feelings on the matter were as transparent as glass. His intentions quietly reflected.

  But to Yusaku?

  He could barely decipher the bits and pieces of emotion he felt. He felt tinkered with and now, whenever he moved he could hear the rattle of something having been broken but couldn’t place it. On top of that, because he was still functioning, he couldn’t decide if he was broken at all. Instead, he was just rattling. Something had come loose.

  Yusaku swallowed. A desire as deep as the depths of the sea filled him. He refused to name it but he was apparent. Love, lust, obsession: Blue Angel. He took a breath and for a split second, he was drowning again. He widened his eyes and willed himself to remember he wasn’t online. He was Fujiki Yusaku. He wasn’t Playmaker. This was the real world, not Vrains. He swallowed again as his breath hitched his throat and a sweat broke out on his brow and dripped down his side. He clutched harder onto his shirt.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Kusanagi asked, panicking as he got his feet.

 His hands moved rapidly before Yusaku’s eyes but he could barely see them. They were blurry and Kusanagi was quickly moving out of focus as well. Yusaku shook himself. Took a breath. He willed himself to remain in a conscious, healthy state of mind but he was muddled nonetheless.

  ‘No. Yes. Just let me find her. I have to find her.’

  He heard that laugh again. Light, airy, twinkling like the chime of silver bells. That was Blue Angel’s laugh. He could hear her perfectly. Clear as day. Somehow, it calmed him down. The tension stringing along his shoulder in tight threads relaxed. Kusanagi relaxed too upon seeing Yusaku’s grip on himself lighten.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Kusanagi sounded like Yusaku had water in his ears. He was vague and murky. Yusaku blinked then stared. And stared. But he could barely see a thing.

  He resolved to find her. He had to find her.

  Yusaku got up and grabbed his Duel Disc. He stormed off and he was unknowingly playing right into Blue Angel’s plans for him. He slams the door behind him and enters the virtual slipstream where he was likely to abandon the air – the winds – forever.

  Playmaker finds her easily enough. She was waiting for him. She watches him with her big, glittering blue eyes and beckons him to the pool where she waits. It’s a puddle in the virtual sidewalk. It’s quiet here. Almost abandoned. It’s almost like someone put a block on the area so only select people could visit.

  Blue Angel begins to sing. She sings a heavenly song that bubbles up from the depths of her throat. She doesn’t speak like she’s speaking through a microphone. That’s one thing that makes her distinct from the players. The players have a crackle of static electricity when they breathe. She doesn’t breathe.

  So, it’s to little eerie wonder as to why Yusaku becomes so entranced by her song. It pulls him in like the moon pulls in the tide. She’s haunting. Lovely. Indescribable. He thinks he’s in love.

  She’s lonely, you know?

  It’s awfully dark and dreary at the bottom of the ocean. She wants – needs – some company down there. Someone who understands how difficult it is to hide when they are everything the other – the commoners – desire in a celebrity. Someone who understands what it is like to hunt and be hunted; to always be teetering on the edge of life and death. Someone who understands what it’s like to phase through life and death. One and zero. And he was the only one to have ever done that. Now. And when he was smaller; younger.

  Finally, they can be together. Forever. Like Yusaku promised her when she was just… Blue. The tame AI. Like she had desired when Yusaku was just that: Yusaku, not Playmaker. He was a chosen child from the experiment. The one that went horribly, horribly wrong all those years ago. Of course, no one remembers. Why should they?

   Yusaku slips. He’s the one who makes the fatal mistake now. He’s too entranced by Blue Angel and her charm to care. He has no one looking out for him from the corner of their eye. So, he slips. He phases through the zeroes and ones once more except this time, he doesn’t emerge as a survivor.

  He sinks. Down and down. In a listless spiral and Blue Angel playfully joins him. She most certainly thinks it’s a game. She batters at him as his hands reach out. A slow regret poisons him. Perhaps, he shouldn’t have trusted the silver song of a siren. She’s not real. But then again, he’s not real either. Not anymore anyway as he sinks further into the deep sea where is transformed into Playmaker for the last time.

  Together… forever. Just like she always wanted. Like he thought he wanted in those tragic days of unreality.

  And now, it’s not just a siren you can find at the bottom of the deep seas but a ghoul: waterlogged and once human… if you believe the stories. The ones fools type out in the group chat: to everyone and no one.

  Nowadays, they say that you can’t have legends and lore without a little bit of blood and gore.

Trelsi: The Pleasure of Un-Orthodoxy

I have to advise honest High School Musical fanfiction writers that they must shelve their fear of being un-orthodox. The HSM fandom is one of the least balanced I have ever seen, and I’ve been part of a few other major fandoms within the last couple of years. With almost no criticism applied to the major couple, Troy and Gabriella, then there should be no fear of going against the grain, even if that means a substantially smaller reading audience. I’ve just spent a couple of hours rewriting and adding to notes for my major Trelsi story, as I’ve been dilly-dallying on it for a while, working on a couple of smaller Trelsi projects. I love this story madly, because I’ve got loads of unorthodox additions, structures and changes that I want to make, all of which have been thought through over the last six months. 

The deal is this: non-Orthodox HSM fandoms are often better considered than the canonical pairings-- particularly Troyella. I’ve discussed the patent problems with Troyella in a current series I’m writing called “The Marvel of Trelsi”. Check it out if you like chunky paragraphs, unbridled sarcasm and endless footnotes. This is because the non-orthodox ships must often sift through a large body of script and photographic evidence in order to build a case for their ship. Of course, this is not always the case, and this does not guarantee that anyone will agree with that interpretation. I personally much prefer a case for a ship that is built on script evidence, rather than photographic evidence, as the script is less prone to manipulation than photographs-- a screenshot could mean anything to anyone at any time. But even so, the non-Orthodox shipper often has to look beyond what they are given, whereas the Troyella narrative is so imposing that it does not lend to critical thinking. 

Of course, there are many non-Orthodox ships that I consider implausible or ridiculous. Not everyone bothers to do their homework. And building a case for a ship does not mean that one has considered the legitimate future for that ship, which I argue is somewhat important. (Depending upon how seriously you take these things). But they have often yielded potential scenarios of greater interest than what was given to us via Troyella. I consider Trelsi to be very much in this vein. Because so few fans are willing to consider Trelsi outside of Kelsi being a useful accessory to promote the Troyella relationship, then very few people are willing to actually think the potential through (soon to be discussed in my above-mentioned series) and see how that compares to the canonical narrative. I have to appreciate the very small audience willing to consider these things, but I continue, because these links and possibilities should be explored.

I don’t know about the writing process of other authors, although judging by the quality of  some fics that I’ve read in the fandom so far, I assume that many don’t have one. I like to write detailed character notes before even writing the first letter of the first chapter. I have to get to the very bottom of the character, and this is honestly where some of my best ideas with regards to the Trelsi ship have come from. In fact, I drew heavily from my character notes in order to write my current series on Trelsi, and vice versa. Up until today, I had been procrastinating on finishing my character notes for Kelsi (ironic, given that I managed it for this series!) and finally completed them today. Previously, I had been considering whether her inability to criticize Troyella would be a significant flaw, until I dug a little deeper and thought about why she supported this “relationship”, and discovered the real reason (which I will discuss in “The Marvel of Trelsi”! XD), which gave me a whole new perspective. I was like “YES-- this makes sense!” It’s amazing when you discover more about the character whilst writing them and then being able to develop the plot. And I contend that this comes from un-orthodoxy; I have to think outside the box and work with the limited materials available to me on Trelsi in order to justify deviating so wildly from canon. 

I wrote an amateur list of “Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots” for the Trelsi fandom, which I now think wasn’t detailed enough with problems that I had when reading Trelsi fics. One of them includes an inability to write Troy Bolton as well as Kelsi Nielsen. I have seen a wide range of characterizations for Troy which range from an unrealistic, macho jock (not sure what script evidence supports that) to being a complete wimp and pushover, which, despite Troy’s plummeting self-esteem, is not true either. In fact, I discussed this in a footnote for my Trelsi series, that Troy can pluck up the courage to walk away from Gabriella during HSM II, when she had been deceiving and manipulating him whilst pretending to flirt with Ryan. There are clear moments when Troy is willing to try and persuade Gabriella, to disagree with her, to try and make her see reason. Just because he is not successful in these attempts does not turn him into a glob of jelly. Another characterization that I wish to challenge is that of Kelsi as being the perennial shrinking violet throughout the movies. I alluded to this during my “Thou Shalts/Thou Shalt Nots”, but I believe that time has given me enough perspective to expand upon that. It appears popular to portray Kelsi as always been the hapless, innocent, shy and sweet girl. I hope that I have brought more nuance and complexity to her as a character here and here. If you can’t see a decided evolution in Kelsi’s character throughout the canonical movies, then I must conclude that you were watching different movies. The key is to understand how much of Kelsi’s shyness remains, and how to balance that with an increased confidence. Because Kelsi takes love VERY SERIOUSLY (check out my analysis of her lyrics), there is little room for playing around with her characterization. This also undervalues the stories that rely too heavily upon the “Kelsi has a crush on Troy theory”, which I will deconstruct in my next instalment for “The Marvel of Trelsi”. (It’s coming. It’s coming... :D)

Another joy of unorthodoxy helps me to challenge the Trelsi fics where the result is a seamless happily-ever-after. I hate HEA endings with a passion-- so much so that I have committed myself to never writing one, whether for fanfiction or for an original. I’m currently working on an original story where I want my protagonist to fail in his quest, because the quest is so deep-rooted and draining that I’m not sure it can be won. It’s not that I advise being pessimistic in unorthodox pairings; I understand the desire to give two underappreciated characters a happy ending. But unorthodoxy is precisely just that. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Think about that. You need to deal with Gabriella, you need to deal with her friends, you need to deal with the dreaded status quo that the Wildcats claim has disappeared, but really exists throughout the movie canon. Personally, I embrace this challenge, and I’m very excited about adding in all my unorthodox changes to the Trelsi storyline. For me, I see no profit without a struggle, and I want Troy and Kelsi to struggle. I see no other way for them as a couple unless they have struggled first. Don’t follow the grain of Troyella where there is no struggle from the start, and everything only gets sweeter and sweeter. If you have a significant problem with Troyella, then you get to deconstruct this myth-- but don’t go overboard and decide to demonize Gabriella, or make Troyella into something worse than it is. (Although it’s difficult to see anything worse as far as relationships go). Play around a little within canonical constraints and plain old common sense. 

I despise fluff in most forms. I read Trelsi fic to learn from the characterization and to add to my headcanons. I actually do not read Trelsi fiction to enjoy the fluff, because I don’t generally enjoy fluff. I understand the appeal, but it never draws me in. Am I too much of a realist? But we are dealing with teenagers, if one sticks to the canonical narrative, and whilst that may be an argument for fluff, it certainly isn’t an argument for unrealistic platitudes of love. Despite the fact that Kelsi is a heavy romantic idealist (as is Troy), that does not immeidately translate into a sugary relationship with anyone. This is why I cautioned against sugary Trelsi stories. But don’t get me wrong, you can still get some classic romantic moments between Troy and Kelsi. I know, because I’ve been planning stories for the last six months. It’s just a matter of understanding what constitutes Troy and Kelsi’s relationship, that it is made up of small, notable and largely quiet moments, often demonstrated during when one of them (usually Troy, but it can also be Kelsi) is at their lowest. So from a writing technique, aesthetic and sadistic viewpoint, I prefer to challenge Troy and Kelsi before they deserve any romantic moments together. I take this same approach to all the romance fiction that I’ve written for other fandoms. If they haven’t suffered, then they don’t deserve it. 

(Fun fact: I used to hate the romance genre, and swore never to write it). 

I have attempted to demonstrate a romantic moment here:

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“Today, he looked casual, almost invisible, with his black jeans, sneakers and black shirt. Casual and handsome, she added, quite forgetting that she should have outgrown such thoughts by now.  

“Why don’t you play the rest of it?”  Without waiting for response, he had jumped off stage (she couldn’t help admiring his agility) and the next minute, was sitting next to her on the piano stool. Distracted by this, and possibly by his deodorant or aftershave or whatever, she stared at him before remembering that this wasn’t Junior Year, and she hadn’t only just met him, and she should just play the damn thing. 

“It’s kinda rough right now--”

He smiled. “Didn’t sound like it.” 

Relenting, she played it. And somehow, maybe because it was her first time, or perhaps because only Troy was there to hear it, she felt drawn in far deeper than she’d intended, so much so that when she’d finished, it took a moment to return to reality. Just the bare bones? No, she had accessed something deeper in the three or four minutes she’d played, and wasn’t sure how to retrieve it, capture the moment in a bottle and repeat. She stared at the keys, her fingernails and then the crumpled manuscript in front of her as though they’d suddenly appeared.  Jesus Christ. And finally, she glanced at Troy, embarrassed about zoning out on him. 

“Er… so yeah. That’s the song. So far.” 

For a moment, he didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on hers. “Wow… That’s… That’s nice.” 

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As you can see, I’ve reused the scene from HSM I, after Troy hears “What I’ve Been Looking For” in order to demonstrate the emotional connection that Troy feels-- canonically, I might add-- towards Kelsi’s music. Obviously, this is rough, so it will be edited properly, but right now (at 22:11pm), I’m thinking it’s not too shabby. Yet. :D I am going to have some fun coming up with more scenes, some already which are in my head. 

I’m onto writing my character notes for Gabriella Montez, which I will finish sometime later this week. That will certainly be fun as I seek to understand her motivations, and why she gets away with such atrocious behaviour towards Troy Bolton. 

Stay unorthodox! :D

May 25: The Finale

So here's how I stand with The 100 now that the finale has aired.

I still haven't watched anything past 4x10, but I'm reading spoilers on my dash and keeping up with the general outlines of things. Before the finale aired, I was starting to get curious about developments again and thought I might just wait for the last ep to air and then binge the final arc maybe over the long weekend or something. Now that I know how the season ends up, my interest in watching has plummeted and while I think it would be silly of me to say 'I'll never watch it ever' (those are very much the sort of words a person like me later eats), I have no interest in watching it any time soon. Maybe over the summer. Sometime. Eventually. Who knows?

The biggest reason to watch the last episodes is to be able to have an actual leg to stand on for complaining purposes but frankly not being up to date on canon hasn't stopped me yet, lol. I just disclaim all complaints with 'I'm one of those annoying people who bitches about developments in episodes I haven't seen' and leave it at that.  

I don't want to be like the anti's, hating the show and talking about how much I hate it but sticking around in fandom anyway, raining on everyone else's parade. It worries me that people might come across my ranty posts and think that of me. But... okay, look, I have done a lot of complaining going all the way back to season 3 and I'm up front both about what I don't like in the show and about why I'm here in the fandom anyway. I like the fandom, I like the characters, I like the universe, etc. I still want to engage in the transformative-works aspect of the fandom. And honestly I've never been a meta writer or engaged in speculation or predictions so looking only at what I produce, content-wise...whether or not I like the canon or even whether or not I'm caught up on it makes no difference. It will matter even less now that we're in the hiatus and there's no new material to speculate on in the first place.  

Finally, and most importantly, I'm really honestly not here to ruin or even put a damper on anyone else's fandom experience. I tag my negative posts as negative. I censor names when I'm talking shit about specific characters or ships. I don't go into people's inboxes and I don't even have a Twitter but if I did, I wouldn't use it to harass other users or people who work on the show. Like, I just want to sincerely love the first two seasons, the general concept, and the characters, while bemoaning the state of the show as it is now. (Also, tbh...sometimes complaining is fun and the vast number of people who leisure-complain on any number of topics is evidence enough of this phenomenon—at least I'm honest about taking pleasure in the occasional bout of this is so fucking stupid inconsequential-rage.)

As for what I actually think of what I've heard of the finale.... I've tried to write this up a couple of different ways and I think (hope) I've FINALLY distilled my thoughts.

The two things I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT out of the finale were (1) for the characters to go to space and (2) a time jump of pretty much any sort. So now that those two things have happened, my brain has basically short circuited. I cannot even comprehend this. I literally don't have the words. Maybe I sound hyperbolic, but I'm just trying to explain how much disdain I have for these two plot points. I can't even fathom how anyone ever thought this would be a good idea; it's like I'm in an alternate entertainment universe. It's ludicrous.

My problem with the space launch is that it crosses the disbelief line for me. Obviously there's a lot of faux-science in this show and everyone has a different line as to what is reasonable-enough if you don't think about it too hard, and what is just absolute nonsense but, for whatever reason, this is my line. I don't know what the details were on the actual show come launch-time but just the concept of launching a space craft from a post-apocalyptic wasteland is so ridiculous that I cannot imagine a way to squint or turn my head or angle my screen so that it seems even remotely tenable. A ROCKET LAUNCH. FROM THE RUINS OF POST-NUCLEAR NEW YORK. Like ?????????????????????????. I previously described this possibility as sounding to my ears like riding a pegicorn to New Jersey to get the magic potion from Raul (s/o to my freshman year roommate for the Raul in-joke, so useful to me so many years later), and that's still how I feel.

My bigger problem is with the time jump. To put it briefly, it's a new show now. The combination of Radiation 2.0 and the time jump has cemented that.

I've felt for a while now that whatever it is I'm watching now isn't what I originally signed up to watch. I've seen a few other posts to similar effect, and even my mother (who acts as my Typical Casual Viewer one-person control group, even though quite obviously she is not representative of a typical cw viewer at all—still she's not in the fandom so she is completely untainted by what goes on in these parts)--even my mom said she thinks JRoth/the writers are basically telling a completely different story now than they were initially. I've had, and am still having, a hard time articulating exactly what makes it fundamentally different (as opposed to merely a show that's evolved over time, as long-running shows do), or even when exactly it happened. But I guess at its core the complaint is: this is supposedly a show about "the hundred," and of that group almost all have been killed or lost to the ether, and the remaining members have had their screen time chronically cut short to accommodate a growing cast of characters who have increasingly little to do with that core group or its original purpose or journey. The complaint is  partly one of frustration at the large number of delinquent deaths and the small scraps of screen time given to other alleged mains, and partly a more general annoyance at the loss of the whole meaning of the affiliation "the hundred." What does it mean to be a member of the hundred anymore? Basically nothing. And when it ceased to have meaning (by which I mean S3), the show became, in essence, a different show.

Obviously there's a counter to this whole general complaint (that the show is too bloated with characters generally and/or Grounders specifically), which I've also seen floated out there recently, which is that destroying everything on Earth will allow something more like S1 to flourish again, and a new emphasis to be placed on the core young people. To this I say, first, it's way too early to tell what S5 will be. And I'm in a particularly bad place to really engage with this argument, given how much of even the current canon I've missed. BUT I am skeptical. First, we were told S4 would feel like S1 again and IMO it most definitely has not. Second, most of the hundred are dead and/or gone—I'm not just talking about the toll among the original mains or even the original named characters, I'm talking about how 42 of the original captured teens made it out of Mt. Weather and all but 4 of them were never heard of again. So even if the show returns to caring more about, say, Monty than it does about Grounder of the Week, nothing can undo the destruction to the original concept; nothing can really solve the problem of which I'm complaining. And third, I don't think the writers think they're writing a bad show; I mean, they're the ones who brought us down this path in the first place. This, what we've seen over the past 2 years, IS JRoth's vision. Yes, sometimes showrunners make a mis-step and readjust course, and I thought perhaps that would happen for S4, but it hasn't, which means that he doesn't think S3 had the problems I think it had, which means there's no reason to think S5 will be any better than S3 or S4 were, at least from my POV.  

But anyway as I was saying—

Maybe there's been room for argument about this same show/different show question up to now; it's a fuzzy sort of concept in my mind with which I'm not entirely comfortable—I feel a bit like I'm just Complaining About Change like an old grandma, tbh. Despite how it sounds, I do want to be open-minded about others' creativity and to give the benefit of the doubt to ongoing projects/unfinished stories. Regardless, ending S4 in this way is a pretty big sign that the theory, whether or not it was right before, is right as of now. Is there any way to more effectively raze the ground and salt the Earth than to literally raze the ground and then skip ahead 6 years? I have a million problems with this large time gap, but on the top of the list is that, like everyone over the age of 25 knows, a person changes dramatically between the ages of 18 and 25, or 16 and 22, just in the normal course of events, apocalypse(s) not withstanding. The writers have given themselves carte blanche to do literally absolutely anything with these characters. Even for a show that's barely cared at all about consistency over time in pretty much any aspect, that's troubling. (Also, like, I signed up for a show about a bunch of teens in the forest, not a group of twenty-somethings...doing whatever they'll be doing in season 5. I feel a tiny bit like a promise has been broken, sorry.)

So having basically established that whatever this show used to be, it's not that anymore, I guess the question is: what is it now, and do I like it? I think this is the question every viewer basically has to ask themselves, consciously or no. For me, what I've seen the last two years is some mismash of GoT, general dystopia, repetitive story lines, action sequences, and nonsense "science." The plot is ridiculous,  the pacing is terrible, the emphases are (for my taste) in all the wrong places, the characters are shoddily drawn, and often times, it's fucking boring. It's a bad show. Things like loyalty to a few characters, interest in a few story lines, and sheer curiosity/inertia have kept me here despite it all, but at this point I feel the balance has just shifted imperceptibly the other way. Jasper's death has a lot to do with it (he was my favorite, he had the only good or even coherent story of S3, and the way his death and its aftermath were handled were so insulting one could easily justify a decision to stop watching as mini-protest), but I think that it was more the (very heavy) straw on the camel's back than anything else.

I guess the tl:dr version of this is GOODBYE BITCHES I'M DONE and yet I still can't even promise I won't be watching Season 5, like I can't predict how I'll feel in a year.

Scientific Linux and Antergos are shutting down: It is time for Linux Mint to go

http://tinyurl.com/y5scw9ns Cinnamon, the favored desktop atmosphere featured in Linux Mint, makes extra sense as a distribution-agnostic package deal. What to anticipate from Ubuntu 19.04 The subsequent iteration of Ubuntu is however a month away. What new options and enhancements will discover their approach into one of the standard Linux distributions on the planet? Discover out right here. Since time immemorial—or, extra possible, the late 1990s—the intractable downside of “fragmentation of the Linux desktop” has been debated on the web. Whereas some contend that the big variety of competing distributions gives extra option to customers, that alternative may also be overwhelming—making it too tough for brand new customers to resolve on a distribution, or main them to decide on a distribution that’s poorly-built or unsupported, offering a nasty first expertise. Whereas these arguments have benefit, they ignore a crucial downside: The infrastructure and developer consideration wanted to keep up a distribution is in depth, and tough to justify. Lengthy-running Linux distributions have stopped operations as a consequence of an absence of sources, and it’s time for Linux Mint to think about doing the identical in an effort to forestall developer burnout, whereas transitioning Cinnamon into being a completely distribution-agnostic desktop atmosphere. Standard Linux distributions are ceasing operations Shortly after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 in Might, Fermilab introduced that there can be no new edition of Scientific Linux, ending Fermilab’s 20-plus 12 months historical past of sustaining their very own Linux distribution. Scientific Linux is little greater than a recompiled model of RHEL sources, with Purple Hat’s emblems eliminated. This technique made sense on the time, as RHEL is a paid, industrial distribution. Purple Hat’s 2014 acquisition of CentOS—a general-purpose free recompile of RHEL sources—made Scientific Linux functionally redundant, notably with the introduction of CentOS Special Interest Groups (SIGs). SEE: 10 ways to prevent developer burnout (free PDF) (TechRepublic) CERN withdrew from Scientific Linux in 2015, starting a migration to CentOS, with Fermilab asserting their very own migration to CentOS Eight as a part of the transition from their very own distribution. Likewise, the Arch-based Antergos distribution announced plans to shut down, because the builders “now not have sufficient free time to correctly keep Antergos,” and that “persevering with to neglect the challenge can be an enormous disservice to the neighborhood.” Actually, neighborhood members have already introduced their intent to proceed below the title Endeavour, which might be a big enterprise—constructing a user-friendly installer for Arch is an fascinating science experiment, contemplating that this is kind of at odds with Arch’s aim of decreasing abstractions that complicate system administration. Why Linux Mint grew to become standard Linux Mint has the distinctive distinction of being pragmatically right twice, relative to the historical past of Linux on the desktop. When Mint was launched in 2006, patent-encumbered codecs weren’t simple to put in in standard distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora; likewise, proprietary software program like Adobe Flash required separate set up, which was itself usually a problem. Partly, this was made attainable as a consequence of Mint being distributed from the EU, the place software program patents are primarily unenforceable. Circumstances modified shortly thereafter, as Ubuntu added an additional display screen to the installer to put in codecs beginning with Ubuntu 7.04, and in 2008, varied third-party repositories for Fedora merged to type RPM Fusion, offering a single supply for packages not offered by Fedora for authorized causes. By 2010, Google Chrome 5 was launched, offering an embedded Flash plugin, and assist for Linux (and Mac OS), making the method of utilizing Flash on Linux extra simple. Since then, Flash adoption has plummeted, with support ending at the end of 2020. Patents for MPEG-2, MP3, and Dolby AC3 have since expired, permitting Linux distributions to supply this functionality freely, out of the field. Whereas Mint was the primary distribution to successfully remedy this downside, the vanity that Mint is less complicated to make use of as a result of it gives codecs put in by default now not holds benefit, as different distributions have since caught up. Mint has truly regressed on this place, as codecs are now not put in by default as of Linux Mint 18, making this equivalent to different Linux distributions. The desktop atmosphere debacle of the early 2010s Practically concurrently, each main OS made extremely polarizing modifications to the person interface. Microsoft launched the “don’t call it Metro” interface with Home windows 8, in 2012, which landed with a thud, and partly, prompted the exit of Stephen Sinofsky. In 2014, OS X Yosemitie tried to make Helvetica Neue the default font, and deserted the thought a 12 months later. SEE: How to manage job stress: An IT leader’s guide (free PDF) (TechRepublic) Linux had their very own schism, for desktop environments. Ubuntu Unity, initially developed for Netbooks, was launched in 2010 to widespread derision, although had redeemed itself by the discharge of 12.04, with TechRepublic’s Jack Wallen migrating back to Ubuntu after leaping ship following points with the preliminary releases. Likewise, in 2011, the introduction of GNOME 3.0 on Fedora 15 was met with derision. GNOME Three was meant to be used with touchscreens, upending the utilization patterns that customers had change into accustomed to, prompting Linus Torvalds to declare it “unacceptable.” Dirk Hohndel, then-chief Linux and open-source technologist at Intel, declared on the time that “Gnome Three is simply utterly unusable so far as I am involved.” None of those have been almost prepared for primetime once they launched, and this drove customers away. For a time, Linux Mint “simply labored” in a approach that different distributions struggled to do, as a result of they pushed too-new software program on customers. Out of this chaos was born Cinnamon, the fork of GNOME Three constructed for Linux Mint that makes use of the traditional desktop paradigm launched in Home windows 95. It is acquainted, and that is factor. Cinnamon, the raison d’être of Linux Mint Cinnamon’s familiarity to thousands and thousands, and the straightforward studying curve it gives by retaining a utilization paradigm almost 25 years outdated, is critical, in a approach that proponents of GNOME or KDE could also be unwilling to confess. Whereas Cinnamon is just not the one desktop atmosphere shipped by Mint, the distribution has jettisoned the KDE edition with the release of Mint 19. Whereas Mint didn’t begin with Cinnamon, for a while the majority of unique code produced by the Linux Mint workforce pertains to Cinnamon—it’s the motive the distribution has enduring recognition. That mentioned, the method of creating a Linux distribution and creating a desktop atmosphere are reasonably dissimilar. Clément Lefèbvre, the founder and challenge chief of Linux Mint, does a improbable job of guiding improvement of Cinnamon, although famous his personal frustrations with the challenge within the March Mint update. The submit is tough to summarize succinctly, although he notes that “I personally have not loved this improvement cycle to date,” and notes a divide between the idea of “customers” and “builders.” The next month, Lefèbvre—who merely goes by Clem, within the Linux neighborhood—walked again the feedback noting that he’s not “depressed,” regardless of some blogs reporting it as such, including that “I additionally talked a tiny bit an excessive amount of about what was occurring throughout the workforce. On the one hand it’s a part of my function to report on the progress being executed, then again we’re coping with people, there are folks concerned, efforts being made, emotions which could be harm and it is a part of my function additionally to guard that.” Clem would not want to hold the world on his shoulders Linux Mint is definitely two distributions—the Ubuntu spinoff, for which Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce editions are offered, and the Cinnamon-based Linux Mint Debian Version (LMDE), which exists “for the Linux Mint workforce to see how viable our distribution can be and the way a lot work can be needed if Ubuntu was ever to vanish.” Notably, LMDE beforehand had Xfce and MATE editions, although these have been jettisoned as a part of an elevated targeted on Cinnamon. Ubuntu is virtually within the too-big-to-fail class, as Linux distributions go. Whereas Canonical has deserted improvement of Unity for Ubuntu—switching again to a modified GNOME 3—the distribution is continuous. Canonical is, at a minimal, solvent—notably as expenditures for improvement of Unity stopped as programmers on that challenge have been largely laid off. SEE: Startup Republic: How France reinvented itself for the 21st century by wooing entrepreneurs to Paris (cover story PDF) (TechRepublic) Ubuntu is just not going wherever. However, that solely addresses why LMDE is pointless, not Mint general. Sustaining this parallel plumbing for another Mint for a doomsday situation is paranoia, nevertheless it surfaces an fascinating level: Cinnamon is, to an extent, developed to be distribution-agnostic, partially as a consequence of the existence of LMDE. Many of the unique improvement for Mint is focuses on Cinnamon, although sustaining the plumbing for the Ubuntu and Debian-based distributions—and different infrastructure, equivalent to the web site—is an enormous enterprise, and a time sink for a workforce this small. Cinnamon has momentum behind it, because the progressive, feature-rich implementation of the traditional desktop paradigm for Linux customers. (For comparability, MATE—whereas venerable—is basically in upkeep mode.) Persisting in sustaining Linux Mint as a platform to showcase Cinnamon is mindless, when the labor of sustaining a distribution is dealt with—higher—by Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE, and Arch, amongst a choose few others. In the end, the good thing about Cinnamon could be realized as a very distribution-agnostic desktop atmosphere. Many of the work is already executed: Fedora already has a Cinnamon spin, and could be put in in Debian, OpenSuSE, and Arch (amongst others). Transitioning Linux Mint improvement efforts to make Cinnamon an Ubuntu Flavor—adhering extra tightly to Ubuntu’s infrastructure and launch timelines, reasonably than working independently and operating the danger inflicting package deal conflicts—would deduplicate a substantial amount of work, offering extra time to additional enhance Cinnamon, and ease the strained schedules of Clem and different Linux Mint contributors. For extra on Linux, take a look at “Fedora 30 brings immense quality of life improvements to Linux on the desktop” and “Half of employees think the cloud is actually in the sky, according to a third of IT workers” on TechRepublic. Open Supply Weekly Publication You do not need to miss our ideas, tutorials, and commentary on the Linux OS and open supply functions. Delivered Tuesdays Join right this moment Join right this moment Additionally see Picture: Linux Mint Source link