Alicorn wrote:It is reasonably likely that there will eventually be a sort of Chelseas Preserve when there is a critical mass of Chelseas to keep each other company and someone who is capable of safely interacting with them to set it up.
I picturing this savanah like place where packs of identical women run around attacking everyone shouting "everyone must love me"
---
Anyway, I just read the bit that said that Kerron and Brandon moved in together so my tumblr-shipping-mind already jumped to assume the best.
also, I think that I ship Bells+Jokers more than Bells+Sherlocks, but Shell Bell and Pearl do win over Bells+Jokers.
Sorry for my bad english
"Yambe Akka take the stars, they’re zombies!" - Isabella Amariah
I feel like you've mentioned the Chelsea Preserve before at some point, but I'm not sure where. At any rate, I wholeheartedly approve of it, because it's really weirdly and dissonantly adorable and I love that kind of thing. And there might even some non-Chelsish people who would want to live there, just based on how weirdly nice life in the Creepy Village sounded in Radiance.
An Afton cluster within the Preserve seems inevitable, though I'm not sure how multiple Aftons and multiple Chelseas would interface. Would that devolve into competition, or would they be okay with an undifferentiated polyamorous N-gon?
Do Chelseas have an actual diagnosable disorder? Could there theoretically be a Chelsea who acquired therapy or meds that work for her and is now a bit clingy but mostly functional? How would such a Chelsea feel about the Preserve? How would the Preserved Chelseas feel about her?
---
Ships! In terms of shipping... I don't know whether this counts, but I am super into the non-relationship between Princess Bella and Trouble. Like, every part of it makes me so happy. Her being a scary robot, him being a massive liability in many ways, him being terrified of her willingness to press counterfactual turnip buttons, her being an ass to Rhea. Everything. Everything about these two horribly traumatized teenaged shapeshifters is wonderful.
A Chelseas Preserve would certainly contain Aftons! They are a usual follow-on for the Chelsea template, although not invariable. Chelseas are by and large panromantic with sexuality being an afterthought kind of way to go about being romantic at people, and as a general rule they're very relaxed about whether that's a thing with any given person they are keeping as a pet or whatever. Gift Chelsa was having sex with like two-thirds of her pets where the orientations lined up and the pet felt so inclined and plenty of them were having sex with each other too, she was cool with that. Aurum Chelsea was monogamous with Afton because vampire. A Chelseas Preserve with lots of both plus however many one-off pet friends would settle into a web with the occasional mono-pair enforced by vampirism or things like it lounging off to the side looking on approvingly.
I don't know if there is a disorder that describes Chelseas! I will say they vary in their terrifyingness to a significant degree by how sensory their magic is. Chelise had no magic, and while enforced close quarters with someone who didn't like her made her dangerous, if she'd been able to leave she would have just left and gotten over it. Chelsea had a range limit and had to act to learn things even about people who were nearby, and contented herself with one plus-sized coven and a mate. Chelsa had ambient constant immersion in a sensory understanding of the love around her, so she was by far the most obsessive. Since I don't know if there is a real disorder like Chelsea, I don't know if such a disorder can be medicated in reality. I won't rule out using fictional drugs (or magic or whatever) to subdue the personality into something more containable, but I would not write a medicated Chelsea as being happy, I don't think. Chelseas would actually be fairly positive about a sufficiently well-populated Preserve and I can't think of one who would rather be medicated into fitness for the general population rather than unmedicated and released into some nice place with people who would love them.
Approval for Shell Bell and Pearl over Bell/Joker pairings prompts me to produce the following list ordering:
Golden & Edward
Sarion & Aianon/Ansharil
Shell Bell & Pearl
~
Glass & Iron/Steel
Angela & Micaiah
Rose & Beast
Aegis & Sue
~
Aurora & Brilliance
Pattern & Ripper
Cam & Jellybean
Aether & Celo
Etty & Nona
~
Juliet & Minus
Stella & Alice
Amariah & Kas
(Orderings within clusters except the first are a little shaky.)
The Bells are only mildly background aware that they are having this contest which Golden is winning, but in the future something will happen which will throw it into sharp relief and make the ones who are not in that top cluster of three kinda uncomfortable!
I imagine it'd be on the "positive emotional intensity/closeness" scale, based on the prevalence of supernatural and/or trauma-induced bonds in the top seven and the fact that the bottom three all had Some Unpleasantness taking place that drove them apart. And I guess Etty and Nona's trauma leaned more towards "drive apart" than "push together" as well?
It is an interesting classification set. I am intrigued.
Pretty much all purple Bellpartners are going to be Kinda Uncomfortable about this contest! I think Ripper might be okay. Pearl will have mixed feelings. Kas might fling himself into the sun. XD
Alicorn wrote:
Approval for Shell Bell and Pearl over Bell/Joker pairings prompts me to produce the following list ordering:
Golden & Edward
Sarion & Aianon/Ansharil
Shell Bell & Pearl
~
Glass & Iron/Steel
Angela & Micaiah
Rose & Beast
Aegis & Sue
~
Aurora & Brilliance
Pattern & Ripper
Cam & Jellybean
Aether & Celo
Etty & Nona
~
Juliet & Minus
Stella & Alice
Amariah & Kas
(Orderings within clusters except the first are a little shaky.)
I haven't about 3 of these pairs yet. I am surprised about Stella-Alice (but not completely) and Kas-Amariah being so low. I am very surprised that Golden and Edward are so high, aurum stories often focus on The Joker to a point that I don't think you like Golden that much, and everyone hates Edward "Golden pet radio" Cullen in the multiverse. What is the deal with Sarion & Aianon/Ansharil?
Alicorn wrote:The Bells are only mildly background aware that they are having this contest which Golden is winning, but in the future something will happen which will throw it into sharp relief and make the ones who are not in that top cluster of three kinda uncomfortable!
This is why I never going to be confortable around Alicorn, she keeps hurting people that I like :|
Sorry for my bad english
"Yambe Akka take the stars, they’re zombies!" - Isabella Amariah
I am surprised that Pattern/Ripper is in tier 3 rather than tier 2, and the opposite for Aegis/Sue. But perhaps I don't totally understand the ordering criteria.
I hadn't realized it was going to be that unclear. It's something about stability (as perceived from the Bell end). Unpleasantness can drive up or down depending on how it's handled - and in fact long periods of time with no significant unpleasantness just don't get you that far (Pat/Ripper) barring other circumstances. This is also a current list: Aether and Celo in particular are in decent shape to get promoted one day (they're this low only because she was recently ready to say her goodbyes to get out of her anticausal world where he couldn't follow, before it turned out she didn't have to), Juliet and Minus could recover if we can think of a way to get them enough non-traumatic screen time, etc.
Mindreading helps (but is not a panacea); getting married is correlated with better results (but is a symptom, not a cause), having kids is likewise correlated but only symptomatic (Helen is antihelpful), magical relationship-enforcement helps (if it doesn't Horribly Backfire), and then there's a lot of detail-level perturbation affecting the emotional trajectory.
It should go without saying that this kind of stability is not a Bell's first priority in a relationship. They also strongly prefer to have their particular partners once they've picked them out. The fact that they can all tell Golden is comfortably topping this list doesn't mean they want Edwards in particular, even though anyedward would be a good accessory for climbing the ranks.
I don't have any real comments on the Bell Relationship Stability Hierarchy, except to say that I've noticed a sort of melancholy contentment pervading the higher echelons. It's as though the most stable Bells are all clinging to their SOs going "it's okay, I'm okay, you're okay, we're okay" rather than any more joyful expressions of love. But I guess there's a sort of melancholy pervading Bells, so perhaps the melanocholy nature of the contentment isn't actually very noteworthy - even in the lower levels, none of the Bells are ever particularly joyful, it seems. Playful, sure, but rarely joyful. Even the Bells who are happiest with the state of things just aren't very happy, I guess. But the Bells in more stable relationships do enjoy a certain degree of contentment that the ones without them seem to lack.
Anyway, what really led me to comment is that I read "Edward 'Golden pet radio' Cullen" as "Edward 'Golden pet ratio' Cullen" and was very amused at the idea of what "Golden Ratio" might mean in this context.
