#i was into frostiron and johnlock at the same time so the two are kind of inextricably linked in my brain

[echoes-fandoms]

Top 100 Ships (#81: Tony/Loki)

Source: Avengers (2012)

Fanfiction Rating: A- This was the pairing that switched me from ff.net to AO3, if I remember correctly! There are almost 13,000 fics on AO3 for this pairing and there are some novel-length fics of extremely good quality.

When Did I Start Shipping Them? I think that it was the fandom that pointed out the chemistry, and then when I watched the movie again I could really see it in the whole 'offering him a drink' scene. Why Do I Ship Them? At the time, I shipped FrostIron to stick it to the Captain America enjoyers of the fandom. Yes, I was a terrible high school fandom gremlin. But I think that I also shipped them because two sarcastic men with daddy issues are just a good time for reading fanfiction. They're so emotionally damaged and unavailable, and it's a fun alternative to the 'one is smarmy and one is earnest' fanfiction dynamic.

Favourite Fanfiction Tropes/Staples? I love fics where they slowly bond while Loki is in captivity in the Avengers tower. I was a big fan of shapeshifter fics back in the day, and also ones where they were bound together by magical shenanigans.

[kittyprincessofcats]

Why... does this keep happening? This is at least the third discussion like this I’ve had. Trying to roleplay Catradora on Omegle is seriously a pain, because some people just don’t seem to understand that when I’m in the “Catradora” tag, I want to... actually rp Catradora? As in a romantic relationship between Catra and Adora? Yes, I’m here for the ship, not for whatever other thing you find more interesting.

Basically, what happened is: I have this prompt where the idea is that it’s Omegaverse and while they were in the Crystal Castle (during Promise) Catra’s heat took her and Adora by surprise and they ended up sleeping with each other. A few weeks later, Catra shows up at Bright Moon and reveals that she’s pregnant with Adora’s baby. Pretty typical shipping “we have to sort out our shit now because we’re having a baby together” premise, right? Except this person thought it would be totally in fitting and in character if Adora hated Catra after being left for dead, and, let me remember... threatened her, tried to torture her, tried to murder her, tried to murder her unborn child, threatened to let the guards hurt her - basically threatened a whole lot of physical violence against a pregnant person. I was uncomfortable with the way the rp was going, and ended up disonnecting and not saving the log. A few days later, I connected with the same person again, and the above conversation^ is what happened.

And just to be clear, because this person went all “but I can do what I want in a rp” on me: I’m all for fans getting to express themselves creatively however they want (I’m pro-ship and pro-darkfic for a reason). If you want to write a fanfic where Adora is evil and threatens to hurt a pregnant Catra, be my guest! (Just tag it properly.) But in a roleplay, there’s another person involved in what you’re writing, not just yourself. So before putting some potentially triggering or upsetting content in it (like physical violence against pregnant people), you could at least ask if your rp-partner is comfortable with that? It’s not hard to ask? I also always put trigger warnings on my prompts if I know that some potentially upsetting topics are likely to come up? I thought everyone did that??

But really, that isn’t what pisses me off the most. If this person thought “Omegaverse” meant I want the relationship to be abusive - a little preposterous to just make that assumption about a trope they admittedly barely know, but fine, it was a misunderstanding. If they thought I didn’t want to rp a romance - again, how would you make that mistake when you’re in the “Catradora” tag?, but I’ll let it slide. But what really ticks me off is that when I explained I wasn’t comfortable with where they took the story, they turned around and blamed me for a supposedly “confusing prompt” and “only caring about a silly romance and not the more interesting setting”.

And here’s the real kicker: This isn’t the first time this has happened. One time, someone introduced a random “what if Adora is evil and hates Catra now” twist into a fluffy, happy rp without a warning. Another time someone took my Medieval prompt (the idea was that Adora’s a princess and Catra’s her guard and they’re secretly dating, but Adora has to marry someone else) and decided that Adora never loved Catra in the first place and is actually happy about her arranged marriage to a man. When I told that person I didn’t want to continue, they were offended I didn’t want to play out Adora’s new married life and mocked me for “only caring about my precious ship”. Then there was the time someone played Adora in my time-travel prompt (it’s about Finn travelling to the past and meeting younger versions of their parents during the war), and decided that Adora would hate the idea of having a child with Catra in the future, would insult that child in vulgar terms, call that child a mistake, tell them that “two women can’t even have a child together, so what you’re saying doesn’t make sense”, and then exclaim that she’ll stop that “awful future” from happening. When I told them their Adora was insanely OOC (and that homophobia isn’t a thing on Etheria), they got offended and also told me my prompt was too confusing and that I’m naive/dumb for wanting “some boring happy family stuff” instead. Oh, and then there were also those mulitple times when people turned Adora evil/abusive in other prompts of mine...

... And like, sorry, but I'm just tired of this. Catradora is my comfort ship. I just don’t want to roleplay ten thousand things on the premise of “but what if they hated each other instead?” I find their relationship compelling because it’s complicated and yes, unhealthy at times - but there’s a difference between a sometimes complicated (but ultimately loving) relationship and “I’m gonna murder you while you’re pregnant.”

I also just don’t understand why someone who clearly doesn’t even like this ship or this show (look at their comments on how “abusive” Catra supposedly is in canon and how Adora not hating her is this “giant plothole”) would be looking for roleplays in the “Catradora” tag on Omegle in the first place.

... I guess maybe I should just give up roleplay for this fandom and focus my energy on turning all of these ideas and prompts into fanfics instead, huh?

(Interestingly enough, I’ve never had this problem with other ships or fandoms. I’ve been roleplaying Viktuuri, Otayuri, other YoI ships, Thorki, Frostiron, every other Loki ship under the sun, even Bagginshield and Johnlock back in the day... I’ve been doing that on Omegle for years now, and while there was one or the other rude person every now and then, I’ve never had people “misunderstand” my prompts like this. But I’ve only been rp-ing Catradora for a few months now and I’ve already had more awful experiences than with all the other ships combined. There’s all these people who want to make Adora evil without warning, who tell you how bad this ship and show actually are and that you’re dumb for liking it, who’ll make you roleplay Catra and Adora’s break-up in detail and then intoduce all this stuff where they hate and hurt each other. They’re also pretty rude when they don’t like a prompt - instead of just disconnecting when they don’t like an idea, they’ll insult you. I’ve been called all kinds of variations of “disgusting” and “uncreative” on my Omegaverse prompt alone. Not to say that everyone in the Catradora tag is like that, of course. I’ve had a lot of very nice c/a rps on Omegle as well. But the ratio of jerks is just very high. I guess the one upside it has is that it’s making me go back to writing fanfic instead...)