#at this point everyone knows I have only vitriol for the go writers

[beastsovrevelation]

Why didn't these clowns have Shax simply call Aziraphale fat. -_-

[bandaidpennylane]

Who the hell does this raging lunatic think she is? Does she think she owns Pamela Courson? That she is the only one who has a right to post her? Get outta here! What is it about people writing books about Pam that makes them go fucking bonkers? First Patricia Butler. That one wrote Angels Dance Angels Die. Now we have this unhinged lunatic, who named her spider Pamela. Should we be so surprised? 🤦‍♀️

There's a reason why your Facebook page is a flop. 4 thousand followers after 15-20 years of "research." 🤭 You should have never abandoned your Tumblr page. 🤷‍♀️ It was a bit more successful with followers. But seriously lady, being an unhinged lunatic for 20 years doesn't help your reputation. How's that book going? Still can't get any publisher to publish it huh. 🤭 People don't like you Raeanne. This goes way back to the years on the Lizard Lounge where you attacked everyone. You were as crazy then as you are now. The only reason you have 4,000 Facebook followers is because people are interested in the photos you post. They don't follow you because they like you. In actuality, your followers despise you. Even the people who kiss your ass. If only you knew what they say behind your back.🤭 It shouldn't come to you as a surprise. You caused the divide and hatred. Your vitriol over the years has damaged Pamela's memory. You hold pictures hostage. You tag pictures you don't own. But you paid $900 for them! Of course you own them! That's not how it works and you know that's not how it works! You buy prints. Not the ownership of those photos! I could buy those same photos for $400-$900. The difference is I wouldn't tag them like you do because I'm not an asshole like you. The way you use to tag the Themis photos was gross. You absolute lunatic. Then you have a fit when people point out your behavior! 20 years! 20 fucking years Raeanne! Waaaah! I'm mad! You post my photos! Waaah you post ugly photoshops! Waaaah! I'm going to close my page! 🙄 Please do. Close it. Once and for all just close it. If it brings you peace of mind, just fucking close it. The way you rage about photoshopped photos of Pam but you posted a whole ass ridiculous set of AI images of her. 🤔 Guess what that makes you? A hypocrite with zero AI skills. 🤷‍♀️ I doubt you will close your page permanently. You love the ass kissing too much to quit it, even if it's coming from people who despise you. This is like the 10th time you quit. 🤭 But seriously lady, get some real help. Stop raging online and attacking other Pam fans. Do you know how pathetic you come across? 20 years of this vitriolic behavior. Close your page and self publish that stupid book of yours. Enough is enough!

A humorous and ironic update. Raeanne replied to a follower who basically called her out for her shitty AI Pam pictures. 😁🤌

It looks like Raeanne deleted some of Melissa's comments leaving just this one. I don't know who you are Melissa Owens but thank you. The hypocrisy and unhinged audacity coming from this bitch. Thank you!

It's been 48 hours and this bitch hasn't deleted her page. Of course she hasn't. 🥱

Yet another update! It gets more and more ridiculously entitled the more she speaks out. We are brats for posting photos of Pam!!! How dare other writers don't credit them!!!! They are ripping them off! How dare them!!! We are an epidemic of entitled brats!!! 😁🤭😄

Go fuck yourself Raeanne. You been eating out of your own ass for far too long. You have crossed every line of decency. Get help you crazy bitch! 🫣

[again-please]

20 questions for fic writers!

tagged by @septemberskye c:

YOU go ahead and do this if you want! I tag THEE. go unto the tag and prosper.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

just the five!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?��

164,059. neat!

3. What fandoms do you write for? 

actively just BG3. in the past, Star Wars, and a couple of extremely random, disparate things exclusive to my desktop

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 

lmao I only HAVE five but A Little Further has the crown!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? 

oh god, I'm sorry, I do reply to a few here and there especially when I see direct questions for me, but honestly I just feel so awkward bc all I can think to say is "thank you!" with varying numbers of exclamation points. and I am extremely blessed in that recently a lot tend to come at once and I feel terrible that I don't have the brain capacity to give everyone a proper reply

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

of the fics I HAVE ended (slides down in chair), I don't think any of them are angsty! I will do some bittersweetness, but honestly, I like a generally happy ending. I like to include angst, but resolve it - even if the resolution is in a next part in a series

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? 

I guess that'd have to be find a thread to pull, and we can watch it unravel. takes place post victory against the First Order (in a pre-TLJ AU setting) so everything being resolved is just FEELINGS (and we all know how we resolve FEELINGS in this house)

8. Do you get hate on fics? 

I did actually get I think literally my first purely vitriolic comment the other day (again, I am DEEPLY fortunate) but honestly it didn't sound like they even read the fic it was left on? I guess I was just overdue for the experience lmao

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? 

yes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but uhhhh what kind...I'm not sure how I'd categorize it? I guess my aim is for it always to be predominantly romantic, but I will go where the wind takes me in a particular scene

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? 

nope!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

I don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

yes, just one! I wish I could find it but someone translated find a thread to pull, and we can watch it unravel.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

I haven't! and unfortunately I would not wish me as a writing partner on my worst enemy lmao, I'm simply way too slow

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

it's always hard to see beyond the current obsession, but reylo and spuffy are soooo dear to me

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I feel particularly bad about survival season because I was in the home stretch, but man, when the inspiration dies it really dies

16. What are your writing strengths?

I want to say/dialogue banter, especially big group scenes, because that's when it really feels FUN for me and I accidentally go into a trance and do 1700 words of just conversation

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

other than being sloooooooooooow (700 words is a GREAT full day of writing for me), I cannot stick to an outline for the goddamn life of me. I really try and DO outline/summarize future chapters, but in the midst of a chapter suddenly something else will grab hold of me and I realize I actually need to write the complete opposite thing happening

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? 

oh I'm not remotely up to that task

19. First fandom you wrote for? 

babes, it was Teen Titans. and NATURALLY I had an OC that joined the team and whom I (gasp) also freely used in half-baked X-Men stories. 10-year-old me had zero concept of the Marvel/DC divide and honestly I was happier for it

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

I think A Little Further. that one kind of gave me my confidence back and in my head it's permanently associated with that "oh god why am I so obsessed with this FICTIONAL MAN" energy that gets you through the tough times

[thephantomcasebook]

Wo his this Elio guy😂

Boy, do I have a story for you, Nonny ...

So, Elio and his wife Linda run Westeros.Org which, I believe, was the first fansite for ASoIaF - dedicated to keeping the lore. It was basically a Wiki for ASoIaF before Wiki was invented.

Eventually, GRRM was having trouble keeping all the lore straight in his head, so he basically hired Elio and Linda to keep track of it for him in the late-90's, I think. He would get somewhere in the book and he would call or e-mail them with a question and they'd look it up for him.

Eventually Westeros.Org became the unoffical site for the entire series. And ... Elio and Linda started acting more and more like not only gate keepers, but police, of the fandom, believing what they say and decree is law in fan spaces, and that anything outside of it is not true fandom. They were the judges of what was "Legitimate". Sort of like those "The Tolkien Society" cock-suckers for the Tolkien fandom.

When I joined the fandom in late 2009, they weren't very popular with fans of the books - pre-tv show. The place to be if you were a GRRM fan was the forums of Ice and Fire which was run by Elio & Linda and they constantly micro-managed and looked over the shoulders of everyone and everything going on there.

An example:

So someone starts a thread with a fan theory. It's outlandish but fun. People start adding to it, giving evidence, restructuring it so that it fit better. Then Elio or Linda - usually Linda - would come in and dump a big ice water bucket on everyone's fun, because, she thinks that the theory is ridiculous and not in the spirit of the series or the lore. People tell her that she's wrong and usually and successfully tell her to pound dirt - cause Linda couldn't debate worth shit.

That's when Elio comes along. Now, for context, go back to that Reddit post and read his response to the post they put up of my ask. Elio would find one inconstancy or mistake of lore in the theory and hyper focus on it. His stance being that because the people crafting the theory got one thing wrong that the entire thing was illegitimate. It didn't matter if everything else fit or that the people arguing with him was 99% right about every thing. He would take that one flaw and build an entire strawman argument around it while constantly claiming "Well, George said this!" Or "George told me this" ... shit that no one could quantify.

So, basically, the people on the theory thread was like "Whatever the fuck, dude, we're just having fun. Go away."

And that's when usually Linda locked or deleted the thread.

So, book readers started getting fucking tired of the teacher's pet, prefect, mentality of them.

However, when "Game of Thrones" started to hit big, they increased their standing as sort of the "Keepers of the Flame" of the fandom. Suddenly they were on podcasts and doing interviews for major publications. They also became gate keepers of knowledge for casual fans and new readers. Everyone fascinated with this Trans-Atlantic couple and their story about how they started off with this little fansite in the mid-late 90's and now were lore keepers for a world wide phenomenon!

Then, they flushed it all down the toilet.

So, around the time that "Game of Thrones" is hitting, fanfiction for the series is fucking everywhere. I think GOT fanfiction at one point over took "Harry Potter" in popularity. So, Linda writes an essay that gets picked by a publication basically saying that Fanfiction isn't just terrible for story telling, but that its basically fucking evil. I believe she refers to it as "Painting over the Mona Lisa" and is just really vitriolic toward all fanfiction writers in general. Of course, as everyone knows, GRRM hates fanfiction, especially fanfiction of his own characters.

There was a huge black lash to Linda's article/essay from not only fans but from other authors. Neil Gaiman then pens a counter/response to Linda's essay stating that not only is fanfiction important to Western Literature, but its is the very bedrock of human storytelling. That creation comes from imitation. And he defends fanfiction writers and their right to create new stories from the genius of other's creativity because that's what humans have always done.

Now, Elio and Linda look like douche bags in front of the entire world.

Then, the final nail in the coffin, comes when they race swapped Xaro Xhoan Daxos with Nonso Anozie - Which is a great character actor that I love in almost everything he's in. She basically condemned it, said that D&D were pissing on GRRM's legacy and she basically got catty with a bunch of blue haired wildebeests. And because she and Elio elevated themselves so highly in the public eye, they got cancelled before getting cancelled was a thing. They basically got labeled racists and got knocked off their pedestal.

Which is a shame, cause, in general, I agree with her about race swaps being inherently racist tokenism. But if they were gonna be cancelled, there is better shit to get them on than the usual leftist trash accusations.

So, GRRM, quietly, retired them from the spotlight - and public association. And by that point the fandom for ASoIaF/GOT was so massive that they couldn't control it, even if they wanted too. And they both kind of faded away.

However, recently, they tried to make a come back with "Rise of the Dragon" which was an art book that told an illustrated history of the "Conquest" and "Dance" that was supposed to tie into "House of the Dragon".

However, they were immediately met with hostility from everyone for either the Daxos incident, or their years of unpleasantness as gate keepers. Also, "Rise of the Dragon" was incredibly inconsistent and conflicting with "Fire & Blood" and the art for it was absolutely abysmal. It and them were panned endlessly. And there was no great rush to buy it and the book came and went with very little fanfare.

Now, my boy, Elio is patroling ASoIaf Reddit groups cause I'm guessing "A Forum of Ice and Fire" is pretty dead. And he's still trying to police the fandom, even now.

The lesson hear, Cats, is to have fun and a sense of humor with the stuff you like ... and don't be a fucking Percy prefect about fan stuff.

[empyllon]

"So maybe don't write that story"

cw for mentions of abuse

That's the advice Princess Carolyn gives to Diane when she faces writers block.

I've been rewatching BoJack once again to process. Some days I catch myself missing the past, but most are just days. It's like any other day moving forward, just without him.

I felt like I spent my past much like Pickles, wondering if I could trust my Mr Peanutbutter, but I peeled away the facade and found someone more like Horseman behind the layers. Someone cruel and spiteful.

I decided I didn't want to continue writing a story on uncertainty and lies. And I didn't feel the need to dig deeper for proof in the shallow grave of remains. Some cases are based on circumstantial evidence to the point they conclude, or as the saying goes: "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck... it's probably a duck".

Among pages of the internet, and sorrowful laments of "how could he?" lies no answer good enough for the why. Because he could was the answer, because he chose to. Occassionally, I do still take the blame for allowing him to do as he wanted to me, even when I told him to stop. Always feeling like I have to carry everyone's responsibility, even when I voiced my boundaries.

On days I catch myself thinking of imaginary alternatives of what-if, I look at receipts to keep myself levelheaded. I mapped out all the red flags to see like golf course markers, and decided to do better for myself. I know I cared a lot, but it wasn't mutual. No reasonable person would resort to abuse or manipulation to get their ways. Or ask for silence.

I don't hate him, I can't muster that care. But I hate how he hurt me in all these tiny little ways, like death by paper cuts. On days I'm sad and hurt, I'm still glad I left. Because I'd rather be alone, than spend time with someone who'd yell at me in vitriol over how horrible I am. I always wondered what I did to warrant periods with so much abuse I thought I was wrong, but I see now, it wasn't me.

Excusing it on any other factor than choice is pathetic, because it means you learnt nothing and you intend on repeating the offence.

That's what I hate with abusers, they cry crocodile tears when you uncover them, but as long as you are complicit, they will repeat the same cyclical shit over and over. They don't care, they never did. It's all about what you can offer them, everything is transactional with them. When you are no longer useful, you are discarded like a cigarette butt on the ground.

I fell for someone because I thought he cared. It's in the small things, like chocolate pancakes. I fell out of love because he stopped, like when he walked out on me at my most vulnerable moment and all I needed was a hug.

That's what I wanted to write about, how actions have consequences, and I sure the pot will call the kettle black, as is most cases where the battered party speaks up. But there are degrees in hell, and I think when you resort to lies and intimidation to keep your partner, that's when it's red card.

I've been working on art for an exhibit on domestic violence. I'm going to be telling my story in a medium where I don't have to use words, only express my pain. Because it hurts, abuse hurts. It makes you think you are unlovable, even when you are not. I hope to bring that message to others. That they too are lovable.

[retroactiive]

not-museing-around​:

There was a reason Billie hadn’t yelled at Austen himself through the filming process. It wasn’t his fault, and if she actually wanted things to change she would have to take it up with the other producers, with the directors and script writer. “Oh I’m sorry, was it not clear enough how I feel about your acting? If you had read the source material, this might not be so terrible. So either your reading comprehension is atrocious, or you’re lying.” What an audacious fucking asshole. As he stepped closer, her arms crossed over her chest. And then he had the gal to call her selfish. “Why the fuck do you think I haven’t pulled the plug? You pretentious, fuck. I’m allowed to be upset that a room full of people have taken my lifes work and turned it into a fucking joke. I understand what this can mean, but as it is right now, the movie is garbage. So what it could be for a lot of people it won’t be. No one is going to see a movie that right out the bat is truly terrible.” Billie was angry to the point of tears in her eyes. How disrespectful could this fucker be? “You’re out here, trying to break into the big time, right? How well is that going to go over when you’re in a movie with 4% on rotten tomatoes that lost money in the boxoffice? You’re calling me selfish when my desire to give everyone a chance that’s kept me from telling you to get the fuck out. If you were capable of bringing this level of emotion to your performance then maybe I’d have more hope.” Billie was always the nicest girl in the room but he had crossed so many lines. He was hot though, actually showing a little bit of emotion.

---

“ oh fuck off, “ austen responds with a bit of distaste in his voice, eyes locked on the woman in front of him, who was beating down everything that he was doing. “ i’ve read every word of every fucking book, but it just about how i wanna act. it’s about what the director wants. if he wants to ruin the duality of lysander, take away the emotion that makes his cold behavior so heartrending, then i’m gonna do as i’m told. “ the words that left his lips tasted like venom and it was spewed right in billie’s direction, but only because she was coming after him with such vitriol. like it was his fault that this production was turning into a shit show more and more by the day. and she was right, the longer he worked on this picture, the more he realized that it wasn’t going to be great. but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get paid and soon. and austen needed the money and exposure more than he needed billie’s approval. “ then put your fucking foot down and stop blaming other people for you being too fucking weak. you think this movie is ass, then demand they fix it. expose their shit and embarrass the studio into doing it right. but fucking whining and bitching about me while you don’t know shit about me? that’s just gonna piss me off. “ and just like that, austen has pushed everything back onto her plate. closing the gap, he glares right into her bright eyes. “ do what needs to be done, because it’s right. you wrote lysander. it’s what he’d do, aint it? put up or shut up. “ 

There was a reason Billie hadn't yelled at Austen himself through the filming process. It wasn't his fault, and if she actually wanted things to change she would have to take it up with the other producers, with the directors and script writer. "Oh I'm sorry, was it not clear enough how I feel about your acting? If you had read the source material, this might not be so terrible. So either your reading comprehension is atrocious, or you're lying." What an audacious fucking asshole. As he stepped closer, her arms crossed over her chest. And then he had the gal to call her selfish. "Why the fuck do you think I haven't pulled the plug? You pretentious, fuck. I'm allowed to be upset that a room full of people have taken my lifes work and turned it into a fucking joke. I understand what this can mean, but as it is right now, the movie is garbage. So what it could be for a lot of people it won't be. No one is going to see a movie that right out the bat is truly terrible." Billie was angry to the point of tears in her eyes. How disrespectful could this fucker be? "You're out here, trying to break into the big time, right? How well is that going to go over when you're in a movie with 4% on rotten tomatoes that lost money in the boxoffice? You're calling me selfish when my desire to give everyone a chance that's kept me from telling you to get the fuck out. If you were capable of bringing this level of emotion to your performance then maybe I'd have more hope." Billie was always the nicest girl in the room but he had crossed so many lines. He was hot though, actually showing a little bit of emotion.

[kedreeva]

#wow now i hate nancy even more like what an overly critical bitch#it's not even bad jfc#wtf was her point other than stomping down on steve and constantly saying how stupid he is#god i hate that cheating bitch who thinks she's so much better and smarter than everyone#stranger things (via @captaincoffeegirl515)

So I get you're mad, but also, this isn't cool. Hating on characters in tags of posts that you didn't make isn't cool. Hating on Nancy isn't cool, either. Fandom isn't and shouldn't be about hate. If fandom is making you angry enough to spew vitriol like this, you may need to step back and take a breather.

If you actually watch the scene this is about, she isn't calling Steve stupid. She doesn't make fun of him, she doesn't even tell him it's bad. He assumes, from her face as she reads, that she thinks it's bad, that she thinks he's bad at writing. Even if he was (which that essay argues he isn't, and I don't think he is), and even if she did (which I don't think she does), she does not say so. In fact she's only encouraging wrt to the paper itself.

Before Nancy even says anything at all, Steve says "It's crap, I know" and Nancy's immediate reaction is to say "No, it's not crap!" Steve then insists "It's not good," and Nancy's response is an affectionate smile and "It's going to be! It just needs some reorganizing." She's not even talking about editing the writing itself or the concepts! She gently asks if she can mark on his paper - respecting that he might not want her to help that directly even after he's clearly asked her to look at it, which is loads better than some commenters I've seen on AO3 these days - and he agrees.

And the thing is? She's being kind about the editing she does do! Literally the first thing she does is tell him she sees the metaphor he's using (acknowledging that she knows he understands metaphor enough to create his own from scratch) and tells him it's a great metaphor. When she does point out something that needs addressing, she doesn't tell him "you did this wrong" she tells him "I don't see how they're connected." Do you know what that is? That's straight up gentle help. That's "you have connected these, I am not saying they are not connected, I am just saying I don't see the connection." I don't do a lot of editing but I've had a lot of editing done at me, and this language is so kind. It does not invalidate the thing the writer is trying to do, it just tells them that if they want to make that point, they have to elaborate to make it clearer to people who aren't inside their head with them. That's a perfectly valid critique and she is giving it to him very softly.

He then explains the point and she turns back to the paper to start rereading when he interrupts to ask if he should start from scratch and she immediately tells him no. She asks about the deadline, he tells her it's tomorrow (for early acceptance, which means Steve is trying to get this in early but also that he's waited until the last second for that), and then he asks if she can come over and help him with it (which a) is him forgetting they already have plans and b) is asking her to give up her plans to do work with him on short notice when he probably had time before this he could have asked. I say this to make it clear that her reaction isn't out of the blue or unjustified).

Nancy, who is still torn up over her best friend being brutally murdered on her watch while she was right there after brushing Barb off, and who still feels horribly guilty about having to lie to Barb's parents about it all, says no, remember they have dinner with Barb's parents that they already bailed on last week- ie, Nancy doesn't want to brush off Barb's parents again when brushing off Barb is what got Barb killed. She even tells Steve "You don't have to go" and suggests he work on the paper instead, giving him an easy out. And he grabs the paper and crumples it and does the thing that raises my hackles saying what's the point and acting like trying won't matter and he may as well give up on it because it wasn't instantly perfect the first time.

The point of contention in this scene is NOT that Nancy is telling him he's stupid, it's NOT that she thinks his paper is crap. The point of contention is that Steve desperately wants life to move forward away from the terrible thing that happened to them, and Nancy cannot walk away from the past that left her so damaged. He wants to focus on a paper to get him into a college (I like to think it's the one she wants to go to, so they can stay together, but that's just a theory), and she wants to go wallow in a sad dinner with the grieving parents of her dead best friend. That is the argument. It has nothing to do with his paper except that the paper is a device to show he's trying to move forward and the dinner is showing that she's stuck in the past.

This also isn't Nancy thinking she's better or smarter than anyone. This is Steve being faced with having to care about schoolwork because for maybe the first time in his life the result of his written work matters to him and he's very easily frustrated by not being immediately successful, and Nancy being so wrecked by the trauma she went through that she's barely keeping her own head above water, such that she cannot help him the way he needs despite wanting to. This isn't anyone treating anyone badly out of malice or being a bad person; this is incompatibility rearing its head and getting ready to bare its teeth. This is their trauma responses butting heads. This is the first whisper of how much they don't and can't fit right now. It is the first sign that they aren't going to stay together.

I don't doubt that they love each other. It's not even a question to me. But despite the idea sold to so many people in story and song, love isn't enough. It can't be the only thing. You can love someone to the moon and back but if you don't fit, you don't fit- and trying to carve yourself into the right shape will do far more harm than good. And that's what we'll see them realize, later, and that's why they split apart. Not malice, not meanness, not even apathy. They care so much in opposite directions that they're liable to tear each other apart trying to stay together, and instead of forcing it to break them the way he did in season 1, Steve will end up letting go this time. And personally, I think that's an awesome display of character growth.

[skalidra]

I’m a big fan and hoping to trouble you for advice. If writing complex or dysfunctional families, do you ever have readers who get *too* invested? As in, pushing for character bashing and a protagonist to just burn bridges? I’m glad I got an emotional response and ppl resonate with the conflict, but I’m trying for shades of grey here. It’s uncomfortable and I feel like I’ve misrepresented or poorly conveyed the story, and folks who are so avidly invested will be disappointed :(

Yes. Yes oh my god.

So, this is slightly different but this issue is actually the reason that I stopped writing the Jason in Arkham series, and eventually shut down comments on it entirely a few weeks ago.

For those unaware, JiA featured Jason having, as the name implies, a real bad time in Arkham, and no one noticing for too long (for a variety of reasons) so you had a highly traumatized Jason when he did get rescued. (And I was going to go into the recovery, and etc, but...)

People hated Dick in that story. Hated him, and screamed at him in the comments, and were vindictively gleeful about his pain when he realized that he'd messed up, and so on. No one seemed to care why he made the mistakes he did, or about how things looked from any perspective except Jason's, or the explanations of how he (and anyone else, but they didn't get the same vitriol) could have let something so awful happen.

Being the writer, I knew all those explanations, and it felt like every time someone came in looking to crucify Dick, I had to gather up all those reasons and go defend him. It was exhausting. It sucked. Every time I saw an email about a comment on those stories I hoped it wouldn't be yet-another person raging at him. It killed all enjoyment and interest I had in writing that series.

So I shut it down. It's the one thing that I've decided, even though it's not 'done,' that I'll never go back to. And a few weeks ago, after yet-another 'but why did you stop???' comment from yet-another person incapable of reading the numerous answers I'd already given in response to other comments, I finally turned off the comments on those stories entirely. I'll never have to talk about, think about, or engage with that series again, and honestly I'm relieved as fuck about that. I wish I'd done it years ago.

So, ask yourself a few things. (Little bit of guesswork here, because I can only infer what your story is about.)

First, are you enjoying writing the story? (If no, stop. It is not worth it if you're not having fun. Period.)

Is it something you could maybe fix with added tags? A blatant 'Reconciliation' or 'Unhealthy Choices' or something, if that's the way you plan for it to go, or some opposite tags, if not? (At that point, it's their fault for not reading what they were getting into. Rest easy.)

Do the characters' behaviors make sense to you? (It's most important that the story works for you. Everyone has different interpretations and reactions to shades-of-grey situations like that. Sometimes people make shitty choices or fall back into situations that are clearly unhealthy for them from an outside perspective, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there is no clear 'moral' one in a situation. Sometimes there's no clear cut answer at all. None of these things are unrealistic, even if they may not be what readers 'want' in their specific emotional catharsis.)

If you want to be absolutely sure people understand what kind of story they're reading, you can put it in an author's note, too. People tend to be blind, but at that point they've been warned so like, oh well.

I am personally of the opinion that stories should be for the writer, and everyone else should come in secondary. So, I wouldn't worry about disappointing people, as long as you feel like you've made it relatively clear what kind of story it is. (Fuck people who don't understand. You know, kindly.)

If you still feel like people don't understand, or you're worried that you haven't gotten the balance quite right, maybe read back through what you've posted so far. Take a look from the other side and see if you can figure out where people are getting that intense investment in the outcome from. Maybe there's something small you can edit or add here or there that might help guide people towards that middle ground. Hints of equally messed up behavior on the part of the protagonist, or sweeter/kind scenes to balance out the unhealthy bits of the relationship, or something. Getting that balance can be tricky, definitely.

(I know this is a super uncomfortable thought, but you can also ask people to stop. A 'Hey I know you're invested but this type of comment makes me uncomfortable, please tone it down' could work wonders, even if it can be hard to be confrontational like that. Stating your desires, on your work, is something you are fully within your rights to do.)

At the end of the day, it's your story. What you do with it and how you choose to advertise it are your choice. If people don't like the way it went, they've got a great back button they can use.

(Good luck, Anon. I hope any of that rambling helped. If you want to ask anything else, feel free.)

[myrfing]

Regarding all your everything about today's WoL question xD

Yeah I get you ;w; like I do think it's fine if like ... That's how they write their WoL -- if their WoL perceives their relationship with the Scions to be not great. And often times I have to remind myself that how their WoL perceives it =/= how the player actually perceives it. But sometimes people do insist that the Scions don't really care about the WoL and that does make me a little sad fjdkskf. Especially after everything in ShB and EnW.

But. That's them and I have my own thoughts, so. Poyo ... Sometimes I wonder if FFXIV is as free as people say ... There wouldn't be so many interpretions of the WoL and their relationships with the Scions otherwise, but I'm a little rigid about the WoL + Scions relationships I see in the wild?

Also sorry for, dumping thoughts into your inbox. You might have noticed a bunch of new notifs as of late but I'm shy so. /Rolls away

OH. HI first sorry for being so gung ho about my opinions I do recognize some people put conflict between their wol and scions because their wol is just meant to have issues and complexities about anything from their goals, to heroism, whatever. Some of my favorite wols/writers in the fanbase have written their little guy to completely reject being the wol and the scions, to have run away and be very bitter and angry towards even the gentlest attempts to get them back, and I love what they wrote.

I do personally think though that the msq is a very linear and somewhat rigid story, and a lot of people just sort of…struggle with that. Maybe cus they like the antagonist characters more, maybe because they disagree with the scions politics and goals, maybe the story just doesnt work with what they want for their wol, maybe they just don’t plain like the scions as people and end up feeling like they’re being “forced” to do all this crazy shit “for their sake” when nothing they want aligns with the scions. like I have issues with the scions and always had since arr and to a point I suspend my disbelief but. A lot of people seem to think yeah none of this WAS worth it a majority of the game is boring ridiculous bs and I only liked amaurot/whatever. and they want this to be the reality for their wol without blame, for them to have a good reason to blame others that just…doesn’t really exist. So then all the quests and trials are just an unwanted burden, even though…this is just the leap of faith you give towards a video game that asks you to play it. like game mechanics suddenly are a personal affront, minfilia asking you to turn in a quest to her becomes an indication of her like, moral failings and inconsiderateness, alphinaud being gung ho about better eorzea is just a marker of how he’s a coldhearted despotic 16 year old dragging around your sad chained up angel wol strongest person ever btw with a leash. but instead being like oh yeah I want a canon divergence big time from the get go a weird number of people just preach their wildly poor faith readings about fairly mild and well-meaning characters as truth LMFAOOO. which like, sure, everyone go ham and have fun, but I see a lot of resulting complaints directed at the writers with weird amounts of vitriol. like oh the fucking scions are cruel ingrates towards garlyman1 and the writers wont let me yell at them for it in the new patch, they don’t know what they’re doing with their own themes. in the future i want the option to say/do [shit that would be absolutely wild for the character known as “Thee WoL” to suddenly say with no buildup and is entirely substantiated on their oc’s story]. like people legit turning on ishikawa WHOOO is not a perfect writer by any means but for just running with the basic premise that “the wol and the scions are friends and they want to do good by the world”. and this thing is the basic impetus that progresses you along the entire story and lets you experience its content. Some people have expressed such heavy disgust at this basic ass core thing that you had to play along with to play the game since you first spoke to the scions that I just…????. I guess it makes me think like do you actually LIKE the story or. did you go through 263836822 hours of it just hating the vast majority of it. which would be less weird if the game wasn’t so long and expensive and didnt require so much deliberate choice to keep playing.

and admittedly this is just me turning my nose up at shit out of my own tastebuds but some people will reach to make any character who in canon is like, just some guy living life, into bizarrely evil total fucking incompetent or manipulative assholes who are obsessed with making the wol’s life hell and whose entire existences revolve around making the player specifically the…biggest victim I guess. like jesus on the cross shit. every day wake up eat my cereal traumatize the wol who bears the weight of all the worldly sins because nobody thinks they are just #human and are content to let them suffer alone. and I personally find that uber masturbatory and weird in any writing lol. in the end I think a lot of what people write and how they write it is a communication of ideas and if that idea is “everyone sucks and is so mean to me the most sane and rational and human one of all time” and if you have to reduce the humanity of other characters to bolster yours to the point they have no resemblance to their original selves im going to be like your ideas fucking suck dude. also sorry this turned into another humungo rant it is cool to have you share your thoughts with me and i dunno if this is anything for making a distinction or finding the balance between “player freedom to write their own story” vs. actual misinterpetation. in the end i dont know what’s going on in people’s heads for sure

[doomedship]

I’m at the point where they should really just let us into the writers room lol. We’d probably do it way better after the season so far.

I’m concerned about them losing people after the break if the next two eps don’t go the way they should. It’s probably safe for a 5th season since it’s on par with other 10pm ABC dramas, but maybe if they have a sharp decline in viewers they’ll change things since they write as they go along I think? I don’t know. People are at the end of their ropes. And it probably will get worse. At least until Chenford begins looking like themselves again and gets a move on it with progression. I feel like more damage control might be on the horizon lol. Help us all.

With the frequency of breaks this show takes and the lack of overarching plots it's not the best for creating a consistent sense of momentum. It's definitely not a show that has narrative hooks. My understanding is people really just tune in because they are attached to at least one of the components, be that Chenford or Nathan or Jenna or whoever.

I think the fanbase that consists of Nathan fans is bound to be fine, steady and consistent. Nolan is the only one perpetually rammed down our throats in broadly the same manner. He hasn't had a character assassination, he's never really even had a flaw. So from that perspective, the show will keep trudging on.

However, even non-Chenford oriented reviews after Sunday are none too impressed by the writing and I think that's been noticeable.

I think many reviewers noted that the plot was weak for the last episode. I.e. they ruined the whodunnit they were building up by suddenly having that side character appear early on in the episode, turning up very conspicuously at the police station, so it was obvious he wasn't just a random side character.

Cue a very lengthy confrontation where only Nolan appears. Sidelining every single other character and removing any element of risk or doubt since there was no way in hell anything bad would actually happen to Nolan.

So if the plots are just 😐 even for casual viewers, that's when you're in dangerous territory.

On the point about damage control, I wonder to what extent the show is even aware of what's going wrong. It's hard to get the point across to the right people, after all.

I've also noted the very angry and hostile backlash from a few individuals against the people commenting that the writing wasn't great on Twitter, accusing those who comment they didn't like the episode of "ruining it" for everyone else if they let the show cast and crew know they were disappointed. I find this an unhealthy stance. There seems to be a crippling fear of critical commentary in some quarters which I'd say actually undermines any chance of seeing a return to the kind of writing that was almost universally enjoyed by the fandom.

If the show is letting the audience down such that ever larger numbers have concerns on serious topics, including the increasingly misogynistic portrayal of women or the erasure of non-white characters, I think it's totally valid to tell the people concerned, politely. An audience doesn't have much power to change a show's course but staying silent is guaranteed to lead to more of the same.

None of the @s I've seen have been hateful or lacking actual basis. It's not vitriolic or just for the sake of saying something negative. It's usually just a question, "why do the women have a lesser role this season", or an expression of wishes, "I hope Lucy has more serious storylines soon". This is, in my book, completely reasonable.

How can the show do better if all anyone ever says is thank you, that was perfect?

Obviously I'm not saying go nuts tagging all the cast and crew and demanding things left, right and centre. I myself don't particularly like directly engaging with any of them (hence why I'm on Tumblr much more than Twitter) so keep this to a minimum. The cast in particular have little say over what gets put into the show, they just bring it to life, so I don't see much to gain complaining to them about the writing.

But asking questions and holding executives and writers to account isn't a crime worthy of a witch hunt like some are suggesting.

[askyourwritergrandma]

Hello grandma

I hope you're doing alright.

I have started to write a fanfiction for the first time. I always wanted to write a story since I was 8 and now at the age of 22 I have decided to write. I thought I should start with a fanfiction because it's easier since I don't have to write characters from scratch.

Now I'm done with the first part out of five parts of story and I'm happy with it, everything is exactly as what I had planned and I'm putting a lot of effort on it. My problem is that I'm scared to post it when it's done. I keep thinking that what if my idea was stupid, maybe I should write it for myself and never share it with anyone.

I'm sorry my ask is more like a rant. I haven't told anyone that I'm writing.

I keep saying to myself that I've got nothing to lose, nobody is going to know that I wrote a fanfiction and posted, but deep down I'm thinking if I can't get a fanfiction right, how I'm supposed to write my original story that I've been thinking and writing notes about it for almost 3 years.

Sorry again that was long.

Take care grandma especially in these dangerous times ❤

Hi anon!

I'm doing just about as well as I can be (and resisting the urge to put a gif of that sloth from Zootopia here). I hope you're doing well too.

Welcome to writing! Before we get into anything else, I just want to say regardless of wherever your writing journey takes you and whatever you see out there in the greater internet regarding writing, if you have taken the time and energy to put words to a story, you are a Certified Story Teller. You are a writer and you should absolutely be proud of it and your story.

I don't know if you've run across it already or that unfortunate encounter lays in front of you still, but you will 100% definitely find yourself, at some point, reading some nonsense gatekeeping discourse about who is and who is not allowed to call themselves a writer. You might find a cutting bit of well-thought-out vitriol about the worth of fanfiction vs. original You will wade through some manner of self-published vs. traditionally published. I want you to remember as you go, take only what you need from these things. A bit of how-to, a sampling of advice that you like, encouragement when you find it and leave all the hateful, limiting nonsense behind.

That feeling that you're describing in your post, that awful doubt that your story (and by extension yourself) aren't good enough is something that all writers (all creative types, really) feel. They might be honest about it like you are, they might play it for laughs, they might slather it in arrogance or they might weaponize against others to make themselves feel more adequate. Strip away all that, the fact remains that you have put your time, energy, emotion and heart into creating something. Its an act of vulnerability whether it's a novel, a one-shot, a pwp or a headcanon and its perfectly, 100% completely normal to have anxiety about sharing it.

But some advice about how to cope with that, and maybe a few things to ease you into sharing your work!

A few frank things that we need to be completely honest about regarding your first story:

Much like a baby learning to walk, when you start writing, you will wobble and hang on things to keep yourself upright and fall over. This is completely normal. In fact, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. No amount of advice or plotting or intense study will change the fact that your first story is the starting point.

Try not to compare your writing or your ideas to other writing/ideas that you see. Its natural and everyone does it and it has it's own function in your growth as a writer, but don't base your success/failure on it. Instead of that, look at what you've written and compare it to your own idea of what you wanted to write.

Some people will not like your writing and you don't need them to. Someone passing on your story isn't an insult, it's just not the right audience for your work.

Sometimes it takes a while to get people to notice you and that time can feel a lot like defeat. Its easy to get disheartened if your goal is to be seen. As a young (as in new to writing) writer you should try to focus your sense of accomplishment/success/failure on something that is entirely in your control. You cannot control if someone will click on your story, but you can control challenging yourself to write prompts. Write different characters? Write different scenes? There are a lot of writing prompts/writing exercises on the internet that you can use to practice some of the less exciting things about writing.

In fact, that's what young writers need more than they need anything. They need practice. So much practice. Not because your stories are bad, but because just like walking, its a challenge to start with but the more you do it, the more you understand the mechanics and basics the easier it gets to manage the exciting things.

TL:DR, nobody shows up with an award winning first story and anyone who says this is the first time they sat down at a keyboard and wrote anything is probably not being entirely truthful. Writing is a talent and a skill and you have to work at it to develop both.

NOW, the harder stuff, how do you get the confidence to share after I've just spent all this time telling you that first stories are starting points and people might ignore you? Try this:

If the story you are currently working on is your first born and it is sacred and special to you, do not start by posting it. The first thing you write that you put your heart into is like falling in love for the first time. You aren't likely to forget it. (As evidence, the first story I ever wrote and loved is a story that I am still writing version 209490834903 of atm. It's also a story I share the least with anyone because I am violently protective of it.)

Start by writing random prompts you see floating around on tumblr. These are blurb stories that you don't need to spend longer than maybe 10 to 20 minutes on. They will never develop full plots because they are usually just a scene or some dialogue. If you follow a prompt blog like this there's a good chance that the other people who follow it will respond to you once in a while with comments. Its a good place to start because you aren't emotionally invested in it but it gives your writing muscles a work out.

Fight back against the anxiety that's telling you that your story is silly, that it won't be read, that it's not worth it with positive affirmations. My story is good. I'm doing my best work. It is worth sharing. I know there's a whole writing culture that likes to erase their previous fics or never talk about their old writing because they think they're embarrassing or bad. Maybe they are in comparison to where that writer is now, but at the time it was written, that was the best work they had ever done. Celebrate that rather than let it haunt you like a shame blanket.

To put my money where my mouth is, here's a sample of my oldest fanfic I still have access to:

"Something wrong, 'Geta?" "No." Vegeta snapped. "You never answered my question." "Oh," Goku said. He reached behind him to pick at his butt. "I was just," then he scratched the back of his neck. Behind him his tail was swishing merrily. "Sort of, I... Kind of. Well, you see, I might have... That is to say." "SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!" Vegeta screamed. "I wished that there could be more Saiyans."

(why yes, that is from a DBZ Vegeta/Goku Mpreg NC-17 fic)

I know this was long and I'm not sure you made it to the end. I want to encourage you to take the chance and put your work out there because it won't find an audience if you don't. But I also want you to know that if its not something you're comfortable with, and you do write it for yourself, and you keep it just for you that doesn't make you any less of a writer. Move at your own pace, do what you're comfortable with, and keep challenging yourself.

Thanks!

[fallout-lou-begas]

A lot of people have accused yjj of being racist, particarily in regards to one of their comics involving Joshua graham, and in general saying that they glorify colonization. I mainly understand the other things they’ve done, but the racism seems inexusable. A lot of people have also been saying that yjj and their followers have harassed people. I want to get both sides of the story on this, so basically I’m asking what the deal with all this is?

Hi, anon. I'll provide my thoughts since you asked politely.

This post is quite long and can be considered an extension of my previous post on the matter.

Besides the infamous and self-admittedly ill-informed chancla comic, for which they've apologized, essentially all of the claims that Yesjejunus is racist stem from their depiction of the Dead Horses and Sorrows relative to their depiction of Joshua Graham and their original character Joan in their fanfic No Light (and to a lesser extent Learnin’ the Blues), which is heavily grounded in the setting of Honest Hearts. I think it's unambiguous that the depiction of vaguely defined "tribals" in Honest Hearts, assembled through a mishmash of disparate signifiers and recycled stereotypes and named like Warrior Cats and completely helpless without Joshua Graham's guidance, is indeed thoroughly racist, even if it was intended to be more nuanced and came from a place of self-admitted ignorance on the part of the developers. What I struggle to understand is that the developers and writers of Honest Hearts—and of Fallout: New Vegas as a whole since the entire game is rife with such mishandled, insufficient depictions of "tribals" with no explicit inclusion at all of any specific Indigenous people or presence—are given miles and miles more sympathy and leeway for their poor handling of these characters in the source material than a fanfic writer is for using the tools and setting that they were given by that source material, including the "lore" and naming conventions of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, to tell a story that means a lot to them personally, inspired by their own deepest fears and experiences with abuse, and ignited by their charismatic yet deeply and blatantly monstrous interpretation of Joshua Graham. Given that it uses the setting of Honest Hearts as a backdrop, there aren't any living characters in Honest Hearts who aren't "tribals" besides Joshua Graham and Daniel, and post-canon, Daniel wouldn’t be there. When Yesjejunus is accused of sidelining the Native characters or relegating them to the background, it's because they're just not writing a fanfic about Follows-Chalk or Waking Cloud as main characters: they're writing a specifically intentioned story about the Courier and Joshua Graham, a story that for better or worse remains faithful to the source material’s depiction of Joshua Graham’s unilateral authority over the tribes in Zion, a baked-in element of Honest Hearts and a critical narrative component of No Light. To accuse Yesjejunus of being racist on this principle in and of itself would be like accusing me of being lesbophobic if I wrote a Dead Money-set fanfic with Father Elijah as the main character instead of Christine. If you want something that centers these other characters then you'd just have to read a different story, or write it yourself.

As a final note, I do think that Yesjejunus is a skilled writer. This thought exists simultaneously with the acknowledgement that like everyone else in fandom, they're writing as a hobby and do not have the oversight of an editor on the work that they produce personally and for free. It's not lost on them that there's things about their story that they could have handled differently or more sensitively, such as the oft-cited example of the death of the pregnant Dead Horse character in No Light, with more forethought or planning at the time—even if they were bound by the constraints of Honest Heart's own setting (such as the dearth of non-tribal characters who could have possibly been in the scene instead) while writing the story. Everyone is free to critique this aspect of the story as much as they are to critique any other aspect, or to be discomforted by the whole thing (given it's a very intentionally uncomfortable story throughout), but the suggestion of so many of these "callouts" that Yesjejunus must have been cackling maniacally about the plight of poor access to medical care among real Indigenous people is a suggestion made entirely in bad faith, and one that I simply don't care to entertain.

As for the point about harassing people: if anyone's only evidence of being "harassed" by a single, specific person is anonymous messages on tumblr dot com, then I don't believe the evidence. If people are accusing Yesjejunus' "supporters" or "associates" of harassing people, then if the accusation is that this harassment is occurring either on Yesjejunus’ behalf or otherwise with their approval, then it is also going to require more evidence than the mere existence of the mean anonymous messages themselves. This goes for the rumor that they have "spies" in fandom Discord servers or whatever, too, which is a rumor that I think has only manifested among its spreaders by either self-appointed individuals speaking on no one's behalf but their own, and by the metaphorical snake eating its own tail in paranoia. Yesjejunus, and I, and all of our mutual friends have been nothing but annoyed at best and horrified at worst by the efforts of some self-appointed individuals to "defend" them with such excess vitriol. Speaking plainly, we generally avoid literally any kind of anonymous or public interaction with anyone who's vocally opposed to us as a rule, specifically to avoid this kind of debacle, and when I say "we" and "us" I'm not referring to some sort of shadowy cabal of conspirators scheming to advance the nefarious YJJ agenda, but to a group of friends. I don't know how to explain to some people who question why we praise their work or share their art sometimes how normal friendships work online.

I also take severe umbrage with the validity of the breadth of these anonymous harassment accusations because of how patently fraudulent several other claims are. Yesjejunus has recently been accused of "grooming,” for example, an accusation only even worth considering if one temporarily forgets what grooming actually is and pretends that grooming is when someone older interacts in literally any capacity with someone younger. Some will say that they’re not accusing them of grooming per se, or not of grooming by that name, but in any case, the meaning is that Yesjejunus has interacted with minors and this on its own is intended to scare and upset you. I have seen only two users actually named as "victims" of these “interactions,’ however, sas-afras and comrade-shrimp, but both users have publicly refuted this accusation because neither of them were minors when they first interacted with Yesjejunus. Frustratingly, though, these literal refutations from the literal so-called "victims" are either dismissed out of hand or muddied by hand-wringing mutterings of "well, I could have sworn they were actually minors, though" and "well they claim that they weren't actually groomed, but who really knows." The spreading and trust in completely anonymous accusations, combined with the total rejection of statements from the only people named in these accusations when their statements contradict the accusations, suggests to me that the existence of these actual interactions (and assuming these interactions occurred both intentionally and with Yesjejunus’ being fully aware of the other person being a minor) is not nearly as important as pushing the narrative that "Yesjejunus is a groomer" or “preying on minors” onto the fandom, and ensuring that anyone who doesn't take this claim completely at face value appears complicit in something horrible. As for anyone who still feels "uncomfortable" at how sas-afras or comrade-shrimp or me or anyone who is very much an adult but just so happens to be younger than Yesjejunus could ever become endeared to them, I reiterate that sometimes I don't know how to explain to people how normal friendships work online.

I want to conclude by saying something that I've said many times before: you don't have to like Yesjejunus (or me, or everybody, or literally anyone else) and no one is holding a gun to your head to befriend them or read their work or look at their art. The block and filter and unfollow buttons are very conveniently located on your dashboard and are totally free to use. Everything I've written here is not intended as some argument as to why everyone on the planet needs to be following their blog and leaving kudos on Learnin' the Blues. Still, while I think everybody has the right to curate their own dashboard and remove the content that they don't want to see, I also think it's reasonable for me to not want my friend to get their name dragged through the mud by the exaggerated and misinformed claims of petty, grudge-bearing brigadiers and self-aggrandizing fandom security guards when they'd like to just dump funny shitposts about the Burned Man's chode in peace.

[itsclydebitches]

I’m wlw. While, I’m not going to shame WLW members of the FNDM, bumblby pisses me off. V6 skipped development for both characters for the sake of “confirming” it, but I thought there scenes in V7 were cute. At first. Then it felt like RT dangling gay keys in front of my face. Now they’re attached to the hip while giving the het. ship (Renora) independence. Yang doesn’t care what Ruby thinks and only Blake was upset by her fall. What are your thoughts?

I’ve touched on their relationship quit a bit over the years, on and off, so I’ll try to summarize those big thoughts here: 

I like the ship. I’ve always liked the ship. I’ve never been a die-hard fan like some, but as soon as I entered the fandom and realized they were a thing I went, “Oh yeah, I can see that. I’m on board!” 

Which isn’t to say I’m always a fan of how people engage with them. It’s a fact that every major ship in any fandom is going to have its annoying, dramatic, and toxic elements. It’s also a fact that RWBY has developed a reputation for being particularly vitriolic. I think a lot of the hate towards Blake/Yang stems less from what we actually got in the canon and more from bad experiences from a small subset of fans. Not everyone. Not even the majority. But enough that casual fans, Blake/Sun fans, those who dislike the ship, etc. have reached a point where bmblb is a) so incredibly prominent and b) at times so heated that even a fellow shipper can grow frustrated at the state of the “RWBY” tag. This then bleeds into our reading of the canon material. After all, if you’re frustrated about seeing this pairing so often in fandom spaces and/or you’ve had a bad run-in with someone who ships them, seeing even more of them on Saturday will exacerbate those feelings. 

This is a frustration that’s increased as the show still refuses to make the relationship canon. Crafting scenes each week where something semi-romantic occurs, but isn’t enough to confirm a relationship (like the forehead touch) creates a branching number of annoyances, from “Oh my god how is this still not canon” to “Here’s another week of the whole fandom claiming it is canon.” Those “dangling gay keys” are a problem both for those desperate to see the relationship confirmed because they love it and those desperate to see the relationship confirmed so the characters can begin focusing on other aspects of their identities. “Attached at the hip” feels too close to queer baiting for comfort while simultaneously too narrow a depiction of Blake and Yang. Surely they have concerns and relationships outside of each other. 

I agree entirely that the relationship was rushed in some respects. However, there’s a post somewhere in the depths of my blog where I argue strongly that queer relationships should be allowed to be rushed, simply because so many het ships are too. I stand by that. I understand the frustration of moving from the two interacting primarily as teammates to suddenly holding hands, but that’s a gap that appears in many, many non-queer pairings. Jaune is a great example. Though we introduced Pyrrha’s interest in him from the get-go, he was running after Weiss for his whole time at Beacon, got a little closer to Pyrrha, she suddenly kissed him, and then... we’re meant to believe they were madly in love? His grief is certainly written in a way to imply as much. The cultural expectation of the guy losing the girl just fills in the rest, we didn’t actually see it on screen. So I both agree and disagree. I always want RWBY to be better written, but I also don’t want to hold our queer pairings to standards we don’t demand of the het ones. That way lies a lot of excuses for why it “can’t” ever happen. I’d rather have poorly written and rushed representation than no representation at all. 

Agree entirely about there being a problem with Yang’s fall. Blake’s reaction was fine. The lack of reaction from everyone else was not. As I said in my recap, you can’t prove their love by taking love away from these other relationships. Making Ruby seemingly care less about her sister will not convince me that Blake cares a great deal. Though this is a problem RT has across the whole cast, tying into that “attached at the hip”ness. Characters tend to have one (1) relationship and that’s it. RT really struggles to write a cohesive group, instead creating a collection of duos that happen to inhabit the same space. I can see places where they’ve been trying to correct that this volume  — Yang speaking to Ruby about Summer, Nora talking to the girls about Ren  — but moments like Blake’s talk with Ruby really struggle. In that, these characters haven’t spoken in seven seasons, so all Blake has to say is a generic, ‘I believe in you’ that comes across as stilted and unpersuasive  — we can see the writers trying to convince us that Ruby is The Best and that these girls have a relationship when they... don’t. And scenes like Yang’s fall show us that these underlying struggles are still at work. RT doesn’t know how to craft a scene where everyone reacts because Yang is a well-rounded person sporting a deep and unique relationship with three other teammates. They know how to craft a scene where the one (1) relationship takes centerstage and everyone else becomes cardboard cutouts. 

As for renora’s independence, I need to side with RWBY on this one. The entire point of this arc is that Nora realized she is also attached at the hip and wants to do something about it. That’s a good thing! Whether or not RT actually manages to write a relationship where they’re together without being entirely co-dependent remains to be seen, but splitting them in this last episode was a good start. Similarly, the show did separate Blake and Yang for the majority of this volume and now may have separated Yang from the group for a significant length of time. That’s not the same thing as the girls realizing they need space like Nora did... but then, they aren’t in an acknowledged relationship like Nora is. I don’t think it’s fair to compare them when Yang and Blake haven’t even reached the point where they’re talking about their relationship, let alone what that looks like going forward, and therein lies my real criticism. In order to see the depth RT is trying to give to renora, they have to actually make bmblb canon first. It all comes back to that. The question of queerbaiting, how they find healthy boundaries, how they compare to other relationships in the show... there’s no real groundwork to discuss any of that until we can say, 100%, that they are, in fact, a couple. 

[nolabballgirl]

can I just say that while I get feeling the need to give the cashqueens a break from drama i just feel like...despite all of that if ismail gets S7 I'm just going to get the impression that Ava's character exists solely for everyone else's character development. like how are we going to hear the BULLY'S side(whom ppl already sympathise w more than the victim...bec yk why) before the victim. each time Ava got to talk about her own experiences it was overshadowed by her reacting "harshly" to something the main does so that there's some level of friendship conflict in the season, and most of the non Tumblr audience already hates her for being that plot device. i get why the network would want to do an ismail szn bec no doubt a pale, skinny and queer person would get them more of the gen z views (something I wish ppl would realise is that while yes, them being Turkish and Muslim will come into play,,, white German audience atm sees someone that looks like them!!! Ava doesn't look like them, it absolutely contributes to the vitriol she recieves everywhere else) but idk if that S8 isn't guaranteed i won't really feel good about how they utilised ava.

hi, Anon! thanks for your ask! and before i respond, i do want to acknowledge that s7 hasn't been 100% confirmed nor has it been confirmed as an ismail season (although sooooo many crumbs point in that direction). now, disclaimer aside, let's get into your ask.

if i had my way, s7 would be ava's and ava's alone. i feel like the writers have given her so much backstory that we could really have a rich season exploring everything from the bullying to family separation dynamics to racism/colorism, and that's just skimming the surface. how i feel about pushing ava to s8 is basically how i feel about the sanas getting the "last" season in a remake, and certainly how i felt druck treated amira m. in s4. it's like she's an afterthought, that she's made a main character because she has to be and not because the writers really care about her, and that she has to close out a "generation," so of course, we have to sacrifice her story and plot to satisfy loose ends for everyone else/submit to fan service. and if we even get a s8, that's what i fear will happen again.

but also, i love the girl squads! they are the heart and soul of these shows. in fact, i thought one of the best decisions in a remake was when skam españa made cris the isak and we had 4 continuous seasons with girl squad dynamics (including the drama!) - to me, that's the true "love story" of the series. so when people say they are sick of the cashqueens or tired of the drama, i just hold a different opinion. i feel like there's so much more the cashqueens have left to give us, and we're only starting to get to know them. and i would love to see them through ava's eyes.

and look, if you follow my blog, you know that i have been extremely critical of skam france s7 and the decision to elevate another bully, tiff, to main character without any earned redemption arc prior to or during the season itself. so i think it would be hypocritical if i don't also question druck's decision to do the same with ismail.

finally, your ask hits upon a topic that at a minimum i want to see explored during ismail's season and that's colorism/white passing among immigrant and minority groups in a white-majority nation. oh, and if we do get into religion and islam once again (but please skip the old "muslims are intolerant" schtick a la skam OG/italia/españa🙄), let's hope druck doesn't miss this time around...especially when this is happening on the regular.

[whencallstheheart]

Wow. Was never invested in anything Elizabeth did, so kinda shocked by the vitriol. I assumed it would be Lucas, just because they wouldn't try repeating themselves with another Mountie, but really didn't care either way. Lots of people were pissed off because of Jack leaving, and swore they'd never watch again, but I bet most of them did. I best most of the people currently wailing and gnashing their teeth will this time too. • As for the writing, who's still surprised after 8 seasons to find that the WCTH writers are among the worst in showbiz? Their glaring errors, plotholes, and thoughtless choices are the reason for fanfic writers. If things didn't end up the way you hoped, go find someone who will write it better. If you truly have no reason beyond Elizabeth and her romantic choices to watch the show, well, time to find the show that will give you what you want (although my experience is that almost no show gets it right - certainly not all the time. They can't please everyone.). • As for me, I was only waiting to see what might become of Henry and Abigail, and of course that's left in limbo. Will he come back with her next season, come back w/o her but with an understanding that they are still friends and still corresponding, or not come back at all and the lingering glance he gives her name over the cafe as he drives out of town (ostensibly to visit his son, but hopefully to swing by Abigail's place and check on whether her mom has kicked it yet or not) is the sole nod to the fan's conviction that he cares for her, and the fanfare-less farewell to Henry Gowen's character? It seems like they'd have put more effort into bidding farewell to such a popular character, but then we've already established that the writers have their collective heads up their asses, so who knows. • Finally, I see a lot of people who are happy about the Elizabeth/Lucas pairing, so not sure the vast majority of fans are as pissed off about the triangle resolution as everyone here might think. Probably no one thinks it was well done, however.

I think you’re missing the point.  It’s not necessarily about her not picking Nathan.  It’s about the fact that a story was developed for the past 3 seasons that got completely destroyed in 5 minutes in favor of Elizabeth choosing the man she was already with.  It made Nathan’s entire arc and all the angst that couple had completely and utterly pointless.  He was made the punching bag for no reason.  It goes much deeper than “waah she didn’t pick the guy I wanted”.

Of course there’s other reasons to watch the show.  But how can people trust the writers now when they’re willing to throw everything away?  The writing had been better and those plot holes were being addressed this season.  Had she picked Nathan, everything would’ve made sense.  The way Elizabeth has acted this season would’ve made sense because she was going on a journey to overcome her fears.  But that didn’t happen and it’s left everyone so confused and doubtful and upset.  Rightfully so.  The rug was pulled out from under us.  We also have no idea what show we’ll be coming back to in season 9.  Will Carson come back?  Will Henry be back?  Will they bring back Abigail?  Will they pair Nathan with Faith which none of us are interested in?  There’s so many factors that will contribute to whether fans choose to come back or not but a lot of that is up in the air right now.

Of course there’s people who are happy.  Duh.  But given the backlash, they are not the majority.  Take my little survey, for example.  Only 11 people out of 157 wanted her and expected her to pick Lucas. 11.  That’s it.  It was a complete blindside and fans don’t appreciate it.

[olivieblake]

As a writer or even just a consumer of media do you find people are less willing to accept “flaws” in characters and stories? I’m not talking like this character is a murderer he’s evil no one should like him type stuff, though as someone who started off writing dramione I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of that but just like when characters are ever short of perfect. Like when a strong female character is kinda insecure or a couple isn’t communicating well or has a heated fight everyone gets mad that it’s a toxic relationship or bad writing. I once read a review of a book where someone stopped reading it after two chapters cause it had bad therapy practices, ie. the character still had shit to work through and therapy isn’t magic therefore they weren’t always doing the healing right and it’s like? that’s the whole point!! it’s an arc the character is gonna grow! It’s also made clear early on that the therapist didn’t agree with the coping methods (overly controlling their life) so it wasn’t like they were trying to portray it as a good thing. I know you’ve mentioned people have ✨opinions✨ about your DFS Hermione for having flaws and staying flawed and her flaw is just that she kinda thinks she’s right a lot and maybe isn’t the most self aware nothing even serious lol. I’m not saying don’t be critical of media but it’s kinda overwhelming reading think piece after think piece about why this thing you enjoy is actually the literal worst™️. Like am I toxic for having some of the same flaws ? Am I a problematic creep for enjoy stories where everything isn’t always sunshine, I don’t want to have a train wreck of a relationship but sometimes reading about one can be kinda fun? Is that terrible?

there’s a lot here that I’d like to discuss and I’m thinking about how I’d like to do it (I’ll inevitably chat about it in a video because it’s interesting and complex but I think I may have too many topics for this monday)

let’s see I think I will start by saying: in general, critical discourse about media (books, tv, film, fanfic) is a good thing, but it has definitely gone awry from what I consider to be its origins. I think the whole point of viewing media critically and making observations about what we are portraying via fiction is crucial for amplifying/protecting marginalized stories and reducing harm—specifically, the harm that minorities and women face by being inundated with bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, or ignorant tropes, caricatures, or relationship dynamics. I definitely believe that we should consider what we consume and how we consume it, particularly when it comes to the marginalized voices who do not see themselves represented well or fairly in white male dominated media

that being said, I do think it has led to the expectation that fiction cannot have ANY problems, which is absurd and counterproductive. it’s also extremely reductive, particularly when it comes the Strong Female Character™ thing you mention, where a woman STILL only has value if she’s strong in the “correct” way. I mentioned in one of my other posts and also last week’s video that there’s some kind of disconnect between the VERY GOOD intentions of things like #ownvoices or the movement to empower female characters and the actual outcomes, which make it so that any flaws in a marginalized fictional character are magnified to represent the entire group. the very reasonable request to see ourselves in fiction has somehow become an exponentially convoluted demand to see ourselves a certain way in fiction, where any character who does not reflect our personal experience is bad and wrong. previously, the expectation was that white male stories were universal whereas everything else was only for that specific group, and now, ironically, everything that is created still has to fit that universal quality and please everyone, despite that not being the point. the problem is when you only have ONE movie about this topic or ONE book about this ethnicity, then of course it hasn’t done enough to exemplify an entire subject or culture. there has to be an entire body of work the way there is with white-dominated media, where no single film or book accurately represents the experience of being white

plus we have twitter which is a horrifying hellscape where you get rewarded by the algorithm for making loud, obnoxious points so add that to the list (yesterday I saw that one of the top 3 reviews on Beloved by toni morrison is a 1-star review written by a white man and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness) 

but anyway that’s like, more of a macro look at what I think is going on but you’re right that people are not very forgiving of flawed characters. to some extent, I get it; the one thing we don’t want our characters to do is annoy us, and that’s fair. but I also think people have lost the sense that “oh, this thing isn’t for me” and thus can’t successfully identify the difference between critical failure and personal dislike

now. as for Divination for Skeptics. let me start by saying it’s not like I don’t understand why people find hermione in Divination for Skeptics annoying, because I get it. if you’re taking the story very seriously then sure, maybe you want her to change her behavior and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t. fair enough! to that I say it’s a comedy and if you don’t find it funny you’re perfectly welcome to dislike it, it’s not a big deal to me if I don’t make you laugh. however, I DO take issue with people who claim she’s too flawed or doesn’t grow, because they almost always do it in a very specific way: they say that she doesn’t show enough empathy, aka how dare she not read draco’s mind and simply alter her personality and behavior to suit his. it genuinely infuriates me that in my opinion, people who voice that particular “criticism” have seemingly internalized the belief that women should be emotionally perceptive; that for them, hermione’s “flaw” is that she does not take on the emotional labor that draco refuses to perform. (her actual flaw is that her survival technique/coping mechanism is a hyper-rationality that incorrectly assumes she has perfect information; i.e., that everything she knows is accurate, and therefore all of her decisions must be sound.) whereas draco knows this about her—knows and acknowledges it—and yet cannot bring himself to voice his feelings out of a fear-based desire to hedge his own emotional risk. who, then, is more flawed in the context of the story? 

I don’t really have a conclusion yet so I’m going to pause for now and we’ll revisit this; I think mainly it’s that the more media diversifies, the more people will struggle with the preconceptions they have and the presumption that everything they consume is for them, and therefore that they are the metric for whether something is “good.” I think good art, good media, will reflect the world as it exists, but it will still only be the world according to one tiny fraction, a sliver of the actual human experience. does bad representation mean bad art? when it harms people yes. but when it speaks to a deeper truth (the truth of “we are all given to vice and imperfection even if it is not this specific version”), no. but that requires quite a degree of sophistication and self-awareness to identify, hence the discomfort of continuous vitriol or bad takes