Coal Rivalry

[coalcube]

All the things Coal said, running through my head.

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Comments

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not reading this fic because this A/N put me off enough to close the tab so I don't know if it's coal but woof

Hello, and Happy Yuletide 2025 😊
It's been some time since I participated in this exchange and I confess I was a bit rusty, especially in the 'offers' part 🙈 I didn't remember how specific one had to be to avoid receiving prompts one is not ready to fill...
The fact is, Lina and Xellos have never been a pairing in my eyes, even though I like them both a lot. So I did my best to write a piece about them - from Lina's pov - as a gen one shot, toeing the line between the pull of rationality and the fascination of power.
I hope you like it 🙏🏻
Also, please know that I haven't watched Revolution and it's sequel yet.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

That's so unselfaware it tips into funny for me, though it also seems weirdly well-meaning, just because it's too naive to be spiteful. "I hope you like this story, even though I refuse to see your shipping vision and haven't consumed the canon."

it's this one btw: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2025/works/75834576

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

da

To me it's like saying hey, I had no idea what I was doing, and when I got something I didn't want to write, instead of doing us both a favor and defaulting, I plowed through and wrote you something you might not like much, my bad. Enjoy!

ODAO, so they could have just written something without the explanation/justification. I don't think they're being spiteful either, but I would have very little hesitation about rejecting that if I didn't love it. The fact that most paragraphs are one sentence would probably help that along.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder why they insisted on spelling his name like that in the story only to spell it the way the recip requested in the author's note...

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

That's actually really funny too. I know over the years there's been some debate (or confusion?) over Xellos/Xelos/Xelloss, but Zeross is a new one. Why do that if the giftee spells it differently, if not to say "I didn't like your request in any way shape or form, right down to the way you spelled the names!"

Almost 130 hits and just the one kudos and comment. Pretty telling.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know this fandom, but I skimmed the fic and it seems to end on a note that reinforces a different pairing from what was requested. That feels a bit spiteful, or at least extremely thoughtless.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

Lina/Gourry is the canon ship, FWIW.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

Well, author, maybe if you'd watched the entire canon you might see the shipping potential.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair to them, Revolution and Revolution-R are kinda mid and nothing like the classic Slayers anime, and I genuinely don't recall if Xellos even appears in them. In theory I watched all of it but I have no memory of it. "Only" watching the 90s anime for this canon is perfectly acceptable.