inventing old school runescape toxic yaoi + other fangirlish yapping

13/02/2025

tw: transgressive shipping of several unsavoury flavours.

it is no secret that i have been hyperfocused on runescape as of late. i got into this a little bit last time, but for a game i've been playing on and off my entire life i feel like this is perhaps the heaviest i've ever been fixated on it. and i can only give my full attention to something for so long before i start looking for two boys to make kiss. so this entry is less of a blog or a diary and more so just me spitballing some runescape ships because i need to. i simply must. even if no one understands or reads this, it is very important to my wellbeing as a fujoshi that i accomplish this goal.

i will try to make this as understandable as possible for anyone who doesn't know a thing about runescape by commenting on typical tropes aligned with whatever crackpot ships i scheme up. i mean, even a vast majority of the people who play runescape don't give a shit about the lore and might read this and be like "wait, that's a character?" though it is noteworthy that if you are a runescape player, this post will include spoilers for later-game quests. this post might honestly be less friendly to players as a result? i'll hide anything especially juicy under hover spoilers like this. there are still some quests i have left to do though, so maybe there's some good yaoi potential i don't even know about... in any case, regardless of your level of knowledge about the game, this may still come out like the ramblings of a madman. and that is ok. i'm doing this for me.

some notes: the ships may not end up being that toxic. i have only just started thinking! but the one at the forefront of my mind definitely is, at least. and it'll probably mostly be enemies/rivals getting shipped together. what can i say! i like enemies to lovers! and it's a game with a lot of conflicts. also, don't heed the order the names are listed as indictive of anything. in general, i usually follow the oldhead fujo method of putting the top/seme first and the bottom/uke second, but i have not dwelled on any of these long enough to make a concrete decision on how i view them yet. i just need to get these yaoi ideas out there before i streamline them, yaknow? anyway.

lowerniel drakan x safalaan hallow

✦ enemies ✦ age gap (?) ✦ different races ✦

the toxic yaoi idea that inspired this whole thing. right off the top i finished sins of the father pretty recently and as soon as the quest was over i messaged some friends "safalaan x lowerniel toxic yaoi for the next instalment." i did not receive the resounding applause that i desired, mainly because it was a group chat with a lot of cishet dudes and the only person who could appreciate this fine idea hated it because she loves safalaan and wouldn't want to do this to him. but i still think it's an excellent idea..... lowerniel is in bitter isolation.... safalaan is enduring the worst moment of his life, left without hope.....

for the uninitiated: in runescape, the eastern region of morytania is overrun by vampyres that impose deadly blood tithes on their citizens. the vampyres are lead by lord lowerniel drakan. there's a lot of interesting goodies in the lore regarding their arrival to the land, their politics, and their caste system, but the tl;dr is they're really bad dudes that are sucking the people of morytania dry.

but there is a resistance force known as the myreque trying to rid morytania of the vampyres, and safalaan belongs to this group. he has some pretty interesting lore himself, a lot of which crosses into mega spoiler territory for (what is currently) the last quest in the series. basically, he is one of the last surviving of an ancient race known as the icyene and the son of the morytania monarchy pre-vampyre takeover. he is possibly the guy who has suffered the most under the hands of the vampyres, and lowerniel in particular killed his parents in a very twisted way.

i have age gap up there with a question mark. this is because it's kind of impossible to know what the age difference is here. in runescape lore vampyres came to the runescape world (known as gielinor) from another homeworld, and lowerniel grew up there for an unspecified amount of time before they made the move. he's definitely thousands of years old, but the exact number is impossible to know. but safalaan is the really peculiar case!! like lowerniel, we know factually that he's been alive for thousands of years, but he has no memory of most of them. it was a shock to him to discover how long he's lived, actually. so he kinda acts just like a normal aged dude. so its an age gap in spirit, if you will. it's enough for me to take this as a win (<--- guy who loves age gaps).

really i just think its excellent that they're sworn enemies. i think there's a lot of juicy toxic yaoi potential there... it's the type of dynamic i go crazy for!!!

general bentnoze x general wartface

✦ rivals ✦ bickering ✦ always together ✦

alright this one is kind of a meme. i said it as a joke. but maybe there's something? can't goblins have love too?

for the uninitiated: bentnoze and wartface are two goblin generals infamous for making new free-to-play players do a quest with no real rewards. i like it because i like most quests whether they are useful or not, but it's generally very ill-received. goblins (or at least, this brand of goblin) in runescape aren't very sophisticated creatures... which is what makes this very unserious. but even the stupidest of lifeforms deserve some good yaoi, i think!! and i really can't see two rivals standing next to each other without putting my fujo glasses on.

zamorak x saradomin

✦ enemies ✦ mutually assured destruction ✦ polar opposites ✦

aside from my very obvious favouritism towards shipping enemies together, there's not really much to substantiate this ship! in runescape lore, we know that the end of the god wars were mainly a battle between the two, but the men themselves don't have a ton of crossover... there's not even really much we know about saradomin to begin with. to be honest, most of my affection for this ship is leftover from tehnoobshow's old runescape gods exposed series on youtube, as well as my soft spot for red/blue colour-schemed ships (i did 10 years in the johndave homestuck shipping mines, after all).

for the uninitiated: zamorak and saradomin are two of three major gods in current-day runescape - zamorak being the god of chaos and saradomin being the god of order. they were both involved in the god wars, a crazy huge battle that happened thousands of years ago and impacts most of runescape's lore. they weren't the only two gods involved in this war, but by the end of it they were the two major players.

tehnoobshow/tehnoobworld was the most popular runescape youtuber way back in the day. as a devout 10 year old scaper, i used to watch his videos zealously. runescape gods exposed was a series he did that featured zamorak and saradomin (and guthix, another runescape god) and they were kind of like a bickering married couple in it. now that i think about it, this probably had a lasting effect on my psyche.

zaros x zamorak

✦ betrayal ✦ tragedy ✦

with zamorak x saradomin as a runescape gods primer lets get into the meat of it. zaros is another god in runescape lore, representative of dark energy, but in the games modern day he's a very forgotten god. he was actually saradomin's original enemy in the god wars, and this is where things get very juicy! this is pretty standard runescape lore but it is stuff that you uncover in quests so i'm going to put it under spoiler headings just in case.

for the uninitiated: similar to the vampyres, zaros originates in a different homeworld than gielinor. this place, freneskae, was home to a powerful skeletal race known as the mahjarrat, of which zamorak was part of. you see originally, zamorak wasn't a god at all, but a follower of zaros and the highest-ranking general in his army. but zamorak ultimately betrays zaros, slaying him and ascending to godhood himself. it's crazy stuff!!! the tension!! the betrayal!!! they should've explored each others bodies instead!!! i would like to see a world where they still did, and zamorak betrays him anyways. and the guilt that would result in. yummy stuff!!

zemouregal x arrav

✦ this is evil ✦ i have nothing to say for myself ✦

admittedly we're getting extremely convoluted now. sorry for being passionate about the insanity that is runescapian lore. i'll try to keep this sweet! spoilers for the defender of varrock quest.

for the uninitiated: zemouregal is an evil mahjarrat that tried to invade the biggest city in runescape and was defeated by the great hero arrav. unfortunately, arrav died in the process, and zemouregal took his corpse after fleeing. in the modern day, he attempts to re-invade the city with an undead, possessed arrav doing his bidding. the worst part being that arrav's mind is still in tact, and he is kinda forced to watch himself destroy the city he helped found.

it's very!!! it's evil. i'm having very evil thoughts about this one. eroguro thoughts, if you will.

king mawnis burowgar x king gjuki sorvott iv

✦ one-sided rivalry ✦ normal guy x crazy person ✦ incest (cousins) ✦

a lot of these quests are ones i did a long time ago so i honestly forgot that they were cousins before i started researching for this post. oops. but the thought has taken shape in my mind already so i must include it.

it's also just kind of... silly? not in the goblin generals way where it's like you're shipping two of jar jar binks together, but in that gjuki is such an annoying and stupid character that he kind of pisses me off to think about. but when i reframed his antics as bratty behaviour in my brain.... well...... the worms took hold. i love a good brat.

for the uninitiated: these two are kings of small, "rivaling" nations in runescapes pseudo-viking region. rivaling in quotes because mawnis doesn't really give a shit about it and gjuki is the only one who has beef. it's just like a regular reasonable dude who is exhausted by the antics of some paranoid weirdo. maybe they should get married and solve their regional problems that way.

drezel x ivan strom

✦ priest ✦ age gap ✦ student/teacher ✦

look. drezel was just so overprotective of ivan during the entire myreque questline. and ivan is studying under drezel to become a priest????? that's good eats!!!!

for the uninitiated: honestly there's not much else to say here! drezel is a priest that assists the myreque with their cause. ivan is the youngest member of the myreque and drezel is extremely protective of him for his own reasons. they butt heads on this point a bit. it's the kind of dynamic i'm a real sucker for.

jorral x reldo

✦ nerds in love? ✦

these two dudes have literally never met but i just feel like they'd get along well. very wholesome. to the point of being boring to me actually. but they're both resident nerds that hand you strange devices during clue scrolls so i think they should meet up and talk about that maybe.

for the uninitiated: there's not much here. reldo's a librarian and jorral's a historian. they live in completely different cities. they are not even close to each other on the map. and they are both so uninteresting they may as well be the same person. but i'm insane.

evil dave x literally anyone

✦ please ✦ i'm begging ✦

jagex he's so pathetic please give him a boyfriend i want to see him get railed so bad

other runescape ships

while the point of this post was the yaoification of my favourite medieval point and click, i figured as long as i'm rambling i may as well give some love to my other favourite runescape ships too. ships that are maybe a lot more reasonable, all things considered. this isn't going to be as verbose as the yaoi part though.... what can i say..... fujo is all know.....

akthanakos x enakhra

what if we were sworn enemies for centuries that followed each other to different homeworlds

king vargas x queen sigrid

this is very similar to the mawnis x gjuki concept, in that they're two small pseudo-viking nations who are formally at war with each other. i say formally because they don't actually fight, they just have mutual beef. beef that actually does get solved by them getting married. a win for bickering couples nation.

veliaf hurtz x vanescula drakan

another myreque x vampyre ship!! but a lot less evil than their yaoi counterparts. enemies entering into an unlikely alliance with a strong distrust of one another. there's something here, i think!

my arm x snowflake

the stupidest of lifeforms deserve love too: troll version

yume zone

amongst friends i'm pretty famously not someone who partakes in yumeshipping at all. i tend to prefer just projecting on the ships i like instead. but runescape is kind of a hilarious exception to this rule for me. maybe because the player character is kind of a character in their own right? maybe because runescape isn't a work thats conductive to shipping in general? in any case, while i have you strapped to a chair i may as well take the opportunity to yap about my osrs boyfriends and girlfriends. i'm going to include images too, mainly because i think its hilarious to be insane about characters that are made up of like, four polygons in total.

cyrisus

my most beloved!!!! my first osrs boyfriend!!! long before i even did the dream mentor quest, i would just stare at his wiki page in longing. the boyfail of all time. so pathetic and dumb. i love him beyond words.

lady shauna piscarilius

there's no intellectual reason for this she's just hot as hell. please insult me more.

prince itzla arkan

a new comer?!?!?!? no but literally why was he flirting with me through all the varlamore quests. he wants me so bad. and i also want him. very fun very silly it's becoming serious between us i fear.

safalaan hallow

just because i want to force him into my twisted yaoi fantasies doesn't mean he's not also my boyfriend? he trusts me so much? i stood by him at his weakest moments? and he's so cute?

dimintheis fitzharmon

i really didn't give a fuck about him that much during the family crest & family pest quests, but in defender of varrock he really surprised me??? sexy ass dilf? lets go dadnation? i need him

islwyn

i like that he hated me on first meeting and also that he is an elf

eluned

i like that she was nice to me on first meeting and also that she is an elf

bologa

evil goth farmers granddaughter of my dreams?

chaos elemental

don't ask me to explain this one. i simply refuse.

start - old school runescape ost