Aegeon Archives

I’ve been a writer for about 3 years now and I’m looking forward to sharing my work with people who actually give shit about it lmao.

First of all I hate when people use slop as a suffix because it’s come to be used in so many different contexts that no one can agree on what it means anymore, and it’s just become a thought terminating cliche to denote your baseless distaste for literally anything (and it literally originated on 4chan but different discussion for a different time)

In this context, I think the term was originally meant to mean a straight ship where the only thing that justifies them being together is the heteronormative idea of “that’s a guy and that’s a girl so maybe they should kiss even tho they have nothing in common and no reason to like each other!” Which I get can be frustrating especially when it happens at the expense of a queer romance between two characters that ACTUALLY have chemistry.

But the problem with using the word “hetslop” to denote this problem is that it’s fallen into the same trap that all the “slop” words fall into where you can just uncritically apply it to anything you don’t like without having to think about it. So now the most common use of the phrase I see is just to describe a straight ship that you personally don’t like or don’t see chemistry in. Which is like uh…. Weird. That’s weird guys. It’s weird and icky.

Like if you wanna talk about how heteronormativity ruins romance stories… you should talk about how heteronormativity ruins romance stories. Which means actually ENGAGING with and THINKING about those stories instead of just seeing two characters of opposite genders that you don’t think have good chemistry and ascribing this nebulous (and ultimately meaningless) term to them to justify your distaste.

Hornet meets Shakra pretty early on back when she’s still in a bad mood from getting kidnapped, so her first impression of Shakra seems to be that she’s pretty aloof and kind of annoying? (Especially with her constantly calling her child)

Then when she sells you her maps hornet can’t help but gush about how detailed her cartography is. Immediately establishing her as a bit strange but very useful.

Then in their very next encounter it’s revealed that Shakra is actually a badass with combat skills that rival if not surpass hornets, by this point Hornet and Shakra are already well on their way to being great friends (cause as we all know hornet is a simp for badass bug women).

That alone is already a great way to establish their friendship, but it only gets better from here because from this point on shakra goes from useful to INDISPENSABLE.

You’ll be in the middle of the deepest darkest corner of pharloom trudging around aimlessly through an area that you don’t have a map for, dealing with enemies that are way too much for your current setup and skill level, and platforming segments that make you wish for the sweet release. You have no idea when it’s going to end and even if you could turn back (you can’t cause you don’t remember where the exit is) sunk cost fallacy is beating your ass and you’re too stubborn to quit now.

You’re straight up creek without a paddle wondering when you’ll finally get a second to catch your goddamn breath…. And then you see a little bronze ring on the floor. And you hear that faint “🎶aiiee yaiyaiyaiiii 🎶” in the background. And suddenly you’re not thinking about quitting the game anymore.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I almost shed real tears when I found Shakra in bilewater. I was so relieved and happy to see her after all the shit I had went through. And when you think about that mentality from hornets perspective, it’s no wonder Shakra is one of 3 people that lonely ass Tsundare hornet verbally acknowledges as her friend.

If you have clear, demonstrable, reproducible proof that you are good at something and/or are a capable person, it does not make you conceited to simply acknowledge that. And the belief that it does is not humility, it’s self abandonment.

Side note who tf taught Eupha how to fight like that? Yall see the way she was handling that staff? there’s no way you didn’t know you were supposed to be a warrior priestess until just now.