JasonBall34

Quick question, (yes I am writing a fan fic). I remembered a while back that Eoin gave us details in like an interview or something that Juliet was born in America in a prison??? Is that real or am I pulling things out of thin air?

Also, can someone tell me what happens at the end of "The Fowl Twins get what they deserve"? I can not be bothered to finish that particular book (I usually love Eoin's work but that... just wasn't it) and I can't find any book summaries.

For context, I’ve been in the fandom for over 15 years. First picked up the books at 12, and found the forums (the place for fans to chat with each other) and the fanfic site attached to the only insider source any of us had to Eoin and the series at 14. I became an integral member of both a couple years later in 2010-2011.

Back in the day, there were THREE main ships with Arty. Just three. You had Hartemis or A/H ship as some also called it. You had A/M for Artemis/Minerva (which most folks hated because there was a general sense of disgust at Minerva’s character back in the day). And you had the previously popular Artemis/OC.

Also, a lot of the original fanfics were written all the way back 2002-2008, way before the ships that are popular today came about. There was no Alexmis because that didn’t start gaining traction till much later (and given the state of society, probably wouldn’t have gotten popular regardless until mid-2010s). Sadly, the original fanfic site went down about 7 years ago, otherwise I could point you toward it as an example.

You also have to remember that this whole “problematic ships are evil” thing didn’t come about till less than 5 years ago. Back in the day, we were all prepubescent and young teenagers shipping two main characters because most of us didn’t think of the ick factor of an adult dating another adult she’d known since he was a teen. Because we didn’t know better, and it was fiction to begin with.

The instance in The Time Paradox was specifically Eoin trying to see if romance would work, deciding it wouldn’t as he was writing but left it in to demonstrate the dynamic between Holly and Artemis. He’s not saying it’s canon; he’s showing that if they were closer in age (as they were in the time travel section), then it could have been possible in canon. But he left no opportunity for it to continue past that.

All this to say, the Hartemis shippers are probably just older fans from back when aging up Artemis to fit the ship was more acceptable (or creating human!AUs where they’re both the same age). They’re not horrible people, and I know some of them are kids themselves. If you decide to run these people out, there will be no Artemis Fowl fandom left on tumblr.

So play nice, and if the ship icks you out that much, block the related tags or users who use them. It’s fiction. It’s only a problem if you make it one.

Signed,

I am also an older fan who only thought it was a little weird as a kid. As an adult it actively bothers me. I'll still talk about it, it's an adult and a child, I will always find it strange. I don't think mentioning that will tear the fandom apart, I just think it will get those shippers to block me so we don't have to interact with each other. I think that's fine.

If you decide to run these people out, there will be no Artemis Fowl fandom left on tumblr

I believe the discourse surrounding A/H has occurred several times throughout the fandom’s 20+ year history. It happened on the forum boards, it’s happened here, and obviously it will continue to happen as new people join. But it needs to stay as actual discourse, and not pointing fingers while saying “this thing is problematic and if you like it, you MUST acknowledge that it is wrong”.

When I see the discourse start with “hey this ship/thing is messed up and NO ONE acknowledges it”, the implication is the people who like the ship are inherently messed up themselves and don’t understand that they’re “wrong”.

The moment you start the conversation with “this thing IS…” rather than “this makes ME feel…” then you (the collective you) have taken a stance. And that stance is “my opinion on this is the right one”. The next logical step is to vilify and demonize those who disagree with you if you can’t change their minds

Now obviously IRL relationships like Artemis/Holly can be very problematic. It can be counted as grooming (I did not address the fact that had Holly been human, she would have been closer to 20-21, still a 8-9 year age gap, but not 60-something years like OP stated), and there would need to be significant time away from each other in order to appropriately foster those feelings as adults.

But as I pointed out, this is fiction. This hurts no one to age up a character to make a ship appropriate. Or hell, age down a character to make a ship appropriate. No one in Hartemis actually ships child!Artemis and adult!Holly.

My main concern, because I have seen this occur elsewhere, is that this attitude, this “x/y ship is horrible/messed up” that implies similarly horrible things about those who engage with it, will lead to callouts, to bullying, and more. And once those start, they are very hard to stop.

Many of the people I saw active on fowldom and the Artemis Fowl tags over the years were Hartemis shippers. They were the biggest producers of art and fics for the past 10 years since I’ve been on tumblr. You know who I don’t see as often, despite their content not always being about the ship itself? Those same users.

The only thing I can assume based on posts like these that have popped up more regularly in the past year and a half? Those users felt unwelcome. Even if their content wasn’t A/H, they still worried that they would get harassed. So they quietly left or at least limited the content they posted. And now, we’re left with people going “hey, where’s all the AF fans?” because the content has dropped considerably.

Discourse is fine. But you cannot address someone’s opinion about a fictional ship by stating your opinion is fact. You cannot start discourse by saying that the thing is evil or horrible or messed up.

You’re not looking for discourse then. You’re looking for those who think like you do.

And that’s fine too, to an extent.

PROVIDED YOU DON’T TAG THE THING YOU’RE HATING ON BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT THOSE IN SUPPORT OF IT WILL SEE IT.

There are OTHER WAYS to get people’s attention. Maybe start your own tag that the others can block if they don’t want to see hate. Because I’m sure they don’t, same as you don’t want to see the hartemis tag.

For that matter, it is never up to the person who is making things that you feel uncomfortable with to block you. It is YOUR responsibility to curate your feed. Either block the tags or block the people who use them. Those features are there for a reason. This is that reason.

Okay, I’m done for now. I still feel sick, I need sleep, and I’m just really fucking tired, so my thoughts might be a bit rambling at this point. The topic of anti-ship is a sore spot for me as someone who has seen people leave fandoms because they didn’t feel safe.

So forgive me for being protective of my first fandom.

On one hand, I've gotten many asks about Hartemis, and I've felt like if I don't say the right thing, I'll be labelled something I'm not. There is an inkling of the good vs evil, with-us-or-against-us in these asks, which have historically torn fandoms apart.

On the other hand, it isn't true that nobody ships child!Artemis and adult!Holly. I don't know if they're in the fandom anymore, or were ever active on tumblr, but there are some Dead Dove: Do not eat AF fanfics out there. But again, these are old: like, a decade maybe. So please, as piscespixie says, protect yourself and curate your feed. For your own mental health, I'd even say don't confront people who are on the "other side," whichever that may be.

I believe in our little fandom. In the over twenty years of its existence, even when Hartemis was more popular, there have been no reports of fan-on-fan abuse (that I know of). And if anyone were to be inappropriate with a minor in the fandom or outside it, I believe we'd stand up for the victim: because Artemis Fowl is, at its core, about the equality and protection of all peoples.