#i have commitment issues so I don't wanna post something I might not ever finish

[jinkoh]

☕️

[what-even-is-thiss]

How would you know when you're a bad person? I always see posts about you shouldn't doubt you're a good person then right behind it is people complaining how people don't seem to change and Someone telling their story of someone being an asshole. I'm so terrified of being a bad person, but i can't tell if I am or not.

So, a few things about that. First, these are just my personal beliefs about what makes someone a good person and I hesitate to call anyone a bad person. I tend to see people as misguided or shortsighted instead. So what I’m about to tell you is heavily influenced by a Lutheran worldview. Your opinions and beliefs may differ.

I think, first things first, come to terms with the fact that you’re gonna be an asshole sometimes. I don’t mean like say “I’m an asshole and this is just who I am” I mean like you’re gonna mess up. You’re gonna sin. That’s just life. But like mistakes or sinning or however you wanna look at it isn’t really a horrible action by a horrible person. A sin or a mess up is just missing the mark. You aimed your dart at the center of the board and you missed.

Some people lead a life that eventually leads them to purposefully aim darts at other people’s eyes on a regular basis. I assume you are not one of these people. However, once in a while you may overshoot the entire board and hit someone in the foot. When that happens, whether the person hit in the foot forgives you or not, you’re both gonna have to move on from it.

If you move on from your mistake by refusing to even try to learn from your mistake and keep repeatedly shooting people in the foot that’s when you get into maybe assholeish territory.

The way to avoid being an asshole on a regular basis in my view is first of all be open to new ideas. Including the idea that you might be wrong about a lot of things. Nobody likes to be wrong. Especially when you see yourself as a good person. But like actively being a good person isn’t easy. Nobody is just born super nice and kind. Just hang out around some five year olds for a while and you’ll see what I mean. Deciding to be a certain kind of person takes effort. It’s a lifelong commitment. Willingness to learn when you’ve been a jerk and act on your new knowledge is very important.

Now, there are many different kinds of good people in this world. In Christianity we call these different categories of ways people can be helpful spiritual gifts. But in a secular sense they’re ways that a person is really good at bringing kindness and love to their community. And there’s a lot of emphasis in my church on finding what your spiritual gift is and how you can use it to put more good into the world. It doesn’t have to be an inherently spiritual or religious thing though in my view. Are you working towards creating good in your own special way? Are you really good with kids and good at making them feel loved? Are you a good public speaker and very outspoken about issues that are important to you? Are you good at crafting and make wonderful little pieces of art for your loved ones that make them feel loved? There’s a lot of ways that you can put a little more kindness and love into the world and even very small things can add up.

Now as for the day to day and not your overall impact on the world, that’s a tricky one. And it’s tricky because you can’t anticipate how other people will respond to you. I’m a very blunt person. I find it very difficult to not be blunt. And in my family and in my family’s culture bluntness is polite in most circumstances. Saying what you mean and solving any issues you have out in the open is what we do. It’s our way of being kind. But I’ve learned as I get older that not everybody likes that. Some people need things cushioned and sweetened for them. And when people talk to me like that I feel like they’re lying to me. That they’re hiding something and can’t be trusted. And when I talk to them bluntly they think that I openly hate them. But at some level that’s just a cultural difference. And there’s cultural differences and mental differences and differences in what people ate for lunch all around you. Are you willing to adapt to that sort of thing? It’s hard. But we’ve all gotta do it at some point.

Like.... there’s no way to quantify if you’re a good person or not I’m sorry to say. What you can do though is keep learning. You know what I mean? Like what are the ways you can make a positive impact on the world while still taking care of yourself? How are you adjusting as you communicate with those around you? Are you listening to them? Watching how they respond? If you’re making an honest effort then I think you’re a good person. You’re probably a jerk sometimes. We all are. Everybody has a lot of garbage in them. But according to my beliefs at least everybody has a little bit of divine love and goodness in them too. And neither the goodness nor the garbage ever fully goes away. The worst people in history have often had good intentions and the most loved people in history have had a few skeletons in their closets.

At the end of the day worrying constantly about whether or not you’re a good person will only add to the stress in your life and God knows there’s enough stress in the world right now. Are you trying? Are you listening? Are you taking care of yourself and others? Then you’re probably doing fine. Just do your best. Don’t think about yourself in black and white terms. Being a “good person” is a lifelong process that never really finishes. It’s not just a thing that you are.

[bigskydreaming]

I'm gonna be honest, your posts and my own perception of dc comics + fandom + its treatment of my most favorite fictional character makes me want to write a spite fic, but I have OCs in my head who are not leaving anytime soon AND I wanna write a good old fashioned romance with Dick but I have never written romance ever I don't even understand it... And I write scenes rather than a whole story. So I'm genuinely afraid I'll start something and it will neither be cohesive nor finished. Regrets..

Honestly? I say just fucking go for it anyway. Put it out there. If you’re worried about leaving readers high and dry or whatever, just be transparent about that in your author’s notes....just say up front hey, I’m not sure what my updating schedule will be like or if and when this will be finished, but here’s what I have, hopefully some people will enjoy it for what it is.

Like, that thing people keep saying to me in arguments about Ao3 and creative responsibility, about how “well fans aren’t getting paid for what they create so they don’t owe anyone anything?” I’ll say til the end of time that’s effing crap when it comes to things pertaining to social criticism, stuff like racism, homophobia, pedophilia in their works. No, they’re not getting paid but they’re still presenting things to society for their consideration, and they still owe the bare basics of what everyone in society owes each other....ie things like not being racist, homophobic, predatory to children, etc. 

I bring that up here because the place where I ACTUALLY think “well fans aren’t getting paid to create their fanworks” is relevant....is stuff like you’re saying. Being worried about not finishing something and upsetting people.

THAT’S where I feel you don’t owe people, because devoting your free time and energy where and when you have it, to creating fanworks that you then offer up to the rest of fandom to hopefully enjoy, is not an obligation or a commitment to continuing to devote your free time and energy in order to continue to do so, if things change in your life or hell, if you just don’t want to anymore. Its your free time and your energy. That other people have benefited from it in the past, or reaped the rewards of your work in the form of entertainment they enjoy, is not an invitation for any of them to ever regard themselves as your boss and prioritize them as someone you need to please, more than you need to take care of yourself and what’s best for you.

There is a vast difference between ‘responsibility’ and ‘entitlement’ and so many of the issues I have with fandoms in general is the weird way in which so many people treat the two as flip-flopped and feel entitled to things they have no right to and meanwhile feel no responsibility to prioritize the basic decency everybody should have a right to enjoy.

In an ideal world, we’d never be without the endings to fics we invest a lot of time and energy into reading and enjoying, but other peoples’ enjoyment is not a responsibility we take on when we share things for free. This is one of those times when people need to be accountable for themselves. If they know they really hate not reading the ends of stories they really enjoy, and never getting the end to a story they’ve really been a fan of will upset them, that’s a them problem. That’s on them to factor this into their fandom experience and how they go about interacting with fanworks. 

There’s an easy solution to never being left hanging by an unfinished fic.....wait until a fic is finished before beginning to read it. Does that mean they might not get to read or enjoy the early chapters of something a lot of other people are reading and talking about? Yup. But if they’re gonna be bothered anyway after reading those and ultimately the fic goes unfinished, then there was never a scenario there that ended ideally. If you want the enjoyment of at least having sampled every creative idea in the fandom, you have to accept the possibility that some of those ideas will go without conclusion. If you want the surety of never being left bothered by an unfinished fic, you have to accept that there are some stories and ideas you’ll miss out on entirely.  *Shrugs* Its just how it is. 

Doesn’t mean that its still not frustrating to reach the end of a WIP and not know if there’ll ever be more, or flat out told there won’t be....but being frustrated is not the end of the world. Its a thing they can vent about on their blog, and a thing that can result in posts that make you feel targeted by and stress you out about not having updated lately, but that’s just because of how widespread the ‘really loved a WIP and now it’ll probably never be finished’ phenomenon is throughout every fandom, and has been pretty much from the start. And yet, fandom is still here, and none the worse off for the vast multitude of unfinished fics. 

Yeah, it sucks, but ultimately, its not a thing that actually hurts people, and its not a thing that you ever need to beat yourself up over. I mean, I’ve been there on both sides of the equation.....feeling super stressed and guilty over not updating a fic, and feeling frustrated by realizing a WIP I really loved is probably never going to be updated again. Neither is ideal, but it just is what it is. 

For what its worth, the thing I’ve received the most positive feedback on in literally any fandom I’ve been in over the past sixteen years, is Chapter 3 of my YJ fic, Born Under A Bad Sign. Only three chapters of that fic ever got around to being posted so far, with Chapter 3 posted like two years ago, I think.....and yet that one chapter alone has generated me more comments, private messages and emails than anything else I’ve ever written. It was a really personal chapter that allowed me to really unpack a lot of my own issues, like, Dinah basically acted as a proxy for all the things I wished someone had said to me at various points in my life...and even though I really hate that I’ve been too sidetracked by real life drama to return to that fic, I am so, so glad that I posted that chapter as soon as I wrote it anyway. I’ve been told by a lot of people that it really helped them as well, just to read it, because they felt like it said a lot of things they wish they’d heard before now too. And even just hearing it in a fic, said to a character they relate to....*Shrugs* It can help. You never know what can help someone, or what will really speak to someone, or what can have an impact. 

So I say if you cared enough to write it, someone’s bound to care enough to read it and be glad they did, even if you never write a single word more of it. If your biggest concern is leaving someone without more of something they enjoyed and came to love, just take comfort in the fact that you gave them something to love and some measure of enjoyment in the first place.